


The Other Moon

by Ewok_Poet



Series: Ewoks - odds, ends, missing bits and a continuation [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Legends: Ewoks, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Alien Mythology/Religion, Coup d'état, Endor, Ewoks, F/M, Gen, Major Original Character(s), Original Alien Species - Freeform, Yuzzum
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-04-14 03:03:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4547727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ewok_Poet/pseuds/Ewok_Poet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ewoks of Bright Tree Village are concerned. They don't want any other Endorian sentients to be attacked like the Duloks of Gorneesh's tribe were [in Shadows of Endor graphic novel]. Chief Chirpa sends out an expedition of 4 adolescent Ewoks, who will see true colours of the yet-unnamed Galactic Empire, and get to know an Ewok tribe nothing like their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**_Somewhere on the forest moon of Endor, circa 1 BBY_ **

The shadow reappeared solely to disappear again. The chaser swallowed a lump. He was not sure if the intruder was breathing behind his back, or if it was just the wind blowing. After a long, sleepless night, all the sounds of the forest were starting to resemble each other and now they were even starting to sound like his and his friend's own voices. By now, they had spent hours running around the forest, tracing the damp, muddy footprints. Being plump and reasonably short, he never liked running. The smell of his own damp fur in a stormy night was making him feel uneasy.

His name was Mechett and he was a healer.

He and Rango – his closest friend from the earliest days and now the tribe’s much admired chief – had been on guard duty in the middle of a thunderstorm when they encountered the menace that their fellow villagers claimed they had seen a few times. Now it was close to dawn and they were getting tired, but their enemy was not. Up till now they had not managed to catch a glimpse of his face, let alone attempt to capture him. When they finally did see him, they lost him again and they were on the edge of the forest and close to home.

"So, now we know that he is a Yuzzum.” Mechett leaned against a nearby oddly-shaped blasé tree, panting. He could not run and talk at the same time. "I did not expect that!"

They were not willing to continue the chase with the rain falling over the nearby small body of water and lightning hitting somewhere in the distance behind them. The odd tree with its dense crown seemed like a perfect shelter.

"I hate Yuzzums, but this is the worst kind of Yuzzum I have seen in my entire life!" Burly, dark-furred Rango nervously poked his spear against the bark and sat down. "I understand that we are not born with nature powers to begin with, because powers are for the spirits to interfere with, but I swear that this creature has them!"

"Chak, right, no nature powers among us Ewoks!" Mechett almost tripped on the root. "So, whatever we are dealing here could be a Yuzzum god that they summoned and offered a sacrifice to!"

"A bloody sacrifice, you think? That's a scary thought right there! Remember when I banished those frightening...Mechett, are you listening to me?" Rango got up, seeing that his friend was not responding.

"Rango, do you see it?" Mechett pulled his friend's large hand. "Look up in the sky!"

Shading his eyes with his hand, Rango looked at what Mechett was pointing. It was not moving and it looked like a crescent moon. The colour was not the yellowish white they were used to, so it could not have been a new star. It wasn't as though new stars were going to pop in the dotted night sky out of nowhere.

"Strange. It's not the time for the Sistermoon to be visible to us yet, since it's now with those tree-dwelling folk on the other side, far away."

"That's no Sistermoon, Rango!"

"Then what is it? Do you know?"

"No. I just…I just think it could not be the Sistermoon, since that would mean the…the sky has shrunk and the end of the world is coming! Also, the Sistermoon is much, much bigger!"

Mechett couldn't possibly tell Rango about the prophecy, since that would have gotten him in trouble. He shared all of his secrets with his best friend. All of them but one – the one he thought would end their friendship and break their village apart.

"So, are we going to tell the Council about this?" he asked.

"Chak. If they're still listening to us after we've told them that we were unable to catch this – aaaaargh!"

Just as Rango was about to mention the ghostly Yuzzum again, it jumped from the tree and stabbed him in the cheek. He screamed and tried to reach for his spear, which remained stubbornly stuck in the bark.

"Dengar, Ewoks!" Mechett head-butted the menace. Seconds later, he was pushed back against the tree and everything turned black. Once he came round, Rango lay in a pool of blood, his hood torn off and his face disfigured.

"Rango!" Mechett laid his head on his friend's chest. The injured chief let out something that would have been a scream if his mouth and throat hadn’t been full of foam and blood. Mechett jumped and gently tried to touch Rango's chest again, prompting another painful sigh.

"He…he’s crushed your chest bone! I need to treat your injuries!"

Rango only managed to mutter a barely audible "no". Mechett pulled out a straw from his pouch and tried to suck out as much bile as he could from his friend's throat. The burly warrior reached for the straw and pulled it out.

"There is no time. I…I have to tell you something important before I die."

"You are not going to die, Rango. I'm a healer!"

Rango shook his head. Even in his agony, he could not get over how stubborn Mechett was. In his last-ever bout of anger, he realised that he couldn't possibly tell his friend about the biggest deception in the history of their village – that would have gotten somebody in trouble.

He shared all of his secrets with his best friend. All of them but one – the one he thought would end their friendship and break their village apart.

"Mechett...I…appreciate your effort, but my heart is…barely" – he gasped for air – "beating. Please, tell my wife and my...my...my...my son that I loved them." He took Mechett's hand. "And make sure you take over the duties from the council until…cough…he is old enough to succeed me. I don't trust anybody else. And beware of..."

Rango stopped talking as one last stream of blood and bile came out of his throat. His eyes remained open and his tongue, barely recognisable from foam, blood and vomit, hung out of his mouth. A tearful Mechett shook him and pressed his head against his friend’s chest. There was nothing that could bring Rango back – not even the numerous gods the other Ewok tribes believed in. Still, he laid the corpse down and looked up through the treetops, praying one last time to Brother Sky to have mercy on his friend's soul. Faced with his best friend's death, he found himself believing in afterlife.

Instead of the stars, he came face to face with a pair of yellow eyes on a branch high above him.

He snarled. With strength he never knew he had, jumped onto the tree and climbed up to the branch, his axe between his teeth. The thin Yuzzum was sitting on a fork of two branches close to the top of the tree, cackling like an evil forest spirit. He was now adorned with Rango's long hood, his face barely showing.

Not thinking much, Mechett swung the axe, severing one of the menace's hands. The Yuzzum did not let out a single cry of pain but just looked at his hand as it fell to the ground.

"You really like being angry, midget!" The thin Yuzzum spoke near-perfect Ewokese.

"Not midget. Mechett! I spent my whole life with Rango! I remember holding him when I was a wokling and he was an infant! He was destined to become a great leader, just like all the sons of the Arankoo family! And he was the best leader our village ever had!"

"You also talk too much, midget…and none of it makes sense." The Yuzzum directed the index finger of his remaining hand towards the ground below, summoning the severed hand. Mechett observed the ghostly hand floating in what looked like a bubble of light and then wielded the axe again, this time missing his target. The axe was now stuck in the thick branch he stood on.

"Great! This is where I wanted you!" The Yuzzum menace cackled again. "Sure this old tree is notorious for getting weapons stuck in its bark."

Mechett's whole life was flashing before his eyes. He expected the creature to stab him in the heart or sever his very head, as he reached for the axe. Instead of that, the gnarly fingers grabbed the red trinket hanging from his hood, tearing a piece of cloth along with it.

"I got that from my grandmother!” Mechett protested. “You can’t possibly –"

The Yuzzum first ignored him. He observed the trinket and even bit it once, to make sure it wouldn't break.

"This is it. Give me your knife, midget!"

"What? How do you know I have a knife?"

"Give me your knife if you want me to spare you!"

Mechett looked down. A true Gondula, he didn't like being this high in a treetop for so long. He reached reluctantly into his pouch and handed the only knife he had to the Yuzzum, who, to his surprise, proceeded to stab himself in the eye. Disgusted, the Ewok looked away, as his enemy pulled out his eyeball and stuck the red trinket in the empty socket.

"W-why would you willingly blind yourself?"

"That is not of your concern, midget. I have been looking for this ever since I read about it in my mistress' scrolls! Your burly friend was an unnecessary distraction and I lost my patience. He had to die. I have already spent years trying to locate this gem. I only regret that I couldn’t rip it off your hood before I killed him, because using it would have been much more satisfying than fighting! "

Having heard this, Mechett was feeling as if he had betrayed everybody. There had been warnings that something might have been going on, but he had had no way of communicating them to the Elders. He would have had to reveal his source.

"I can see inside your mind, midget. If that Rango loved you and respected you as much as you claim you loved and respected him, why did you keep your biggest secret from him? And, more importantly, why did he keep his biggest secret from you?"

"Rango had no secrets!"

"That's right. Almost right. So, you knew how much he liked a flower in bloom and how many times he stopped to smell a flower until he found the one that smelled just right. But not all that blooms eventually bears fruit. And when it does…"

"I don't care, stranger! Rango had no secrets! And you're a Yuzzum, you're a nobody! You can’t judge him! I know how Yuzzums live!"

"And they do. But I am the purest of the pure!"

"I don't believe in purity!" Mechett was furious.

"You don't believe in anything. A true Gondula right there. It will be so much easier to deal with those head-in-cloud Panshees!" The Yuzzum waved his hand. "You have seen too much! And I need to try and to find the right hosts for this hand you so generously severed from me…as well as this eye!"

The Yuzzum directed his finger at the axe stuck in the branch, which started cutting through the bark. Before he knew it, Mechett was falling through the air. He only just managed to grab the very bottom branch, right above Rango's corpse.

A little later, as dawn was breaking, he marched into the village carrying the body of his dead friend. A female clad in a leather dress came out of the first hut.

"Mechett! I have been waiting for you all night. Are you alright? What has happened to Chief Rango?"

"He's dead, Kerida. Go and tell his wife and son and have somebody inform the Council of Elders. I am not leaving him." Breathing heavily, Mechett sat down next to the corpse.

…

After Rango’s funeral, the Council of Elders gathered for an emergency meeting. Mechett was nervous. He was looking at Rango's young son, the only Ewok present who was as small as him, sitting at the end of the table. Clad in a washed-out red hood with no trinkets on it, with an empty belt of honour over the front bib, he looked too fragile to be a warrior apprentice.

"So, Mechett, tell us more about the murderer," the elderly and sickly Head Elder Ooba asked, leaning over the table to the healer.

"It was a Yuzzum. A strange, posessed and very thin Yuzzum…I chased him up a tree, but he took my axe and the trinket from my hood. He then stabbed himself in the eye and replaced his eye with my trinket! But it all started when we saw the crescent."

"You climbed a tree?"

"Chak, I did. The Odd Tree. That is also where that evil creature killed Rango!"

The young heir to the throne started coughing and put his hands over his mouth.

"Toughen up, will you?" one of the other Elders yelled at him. He apologised and swallowed a lump.

"He just lost his father, don't be cruel to him." Mechett's wife approached the boy and hugged him. He hit her.

"Shut up and get out of here, Kerida! Women have no rights in the council. If my mother is not here, why are you?"

As two guards escorted her of the hut, Kerida tried to say something, but one of them placed a hand on her mouth.

"We have to escort his family to a safe place,” one of the Council members said once the hut was free of women. “This creature may well be after them!"

"Nonsense." The Ewok who had told the young heir to toughen up slammed his fist against the table. "Mechett is lying."

"What?" the whole Council gasped and the heir started coughing again.

"Where is that hand you're talking about? Show us the severed hand and we will believe you." The loud Elder turned away from Ooba towards Mechett.

"The hand probably disappeared underwater."

"Impossible! That tree is too far away from the water!"

"There were so many puddles and it was still raining when I fell off the tree. The hand could be in any of them, deep in the mud."

Ooba was about to say something, but the one particularly pushy member cut him off again.

"Let's get this straight, Mechett: you have no proof and nobody believes you. You had all the reasons on Endor to get rid of the chief. You already disagreed with him when you got married, despite most shamans remaining pure all their life."

"What you call purity is nonsense and you know it! Purity is a state of mind. Did you meet Keoulkeech from the Red Bush Grove? He has children, just like I do!"

"Red Bush Grove? Those no-good Panshees!" Ooba spit on the hut floor. "I don't care what Panshees are doing!"

The pushy one grinned and continued.

"Rango was easily the most handsome chief we have ever had, and also the most honest one. He was strong, burly and big, with fur dark as the darkest night. You, you are barely taller than his son, who is still a wokling, and your fur looks like you rolled around in turd."

"Am not!" the young one protested, but Ooba shook his fist at him. He was starting to like the pushy warrior.

"Lastly, you knew what he wanted from you, in the unlikely case that anything should happen to him. He wanted you to take over as the chief until the boy is old enough to rule us."

"That much is true." Mechett raised his hand. "And that is because he didn't trust you. I can…I can see why. Nobody respects the boy, either. You're trying to fill his head with anger and I don't…I don't know who is the Head Elder here anymore."

Everybody gasped. Ooba snarled.

"Mechett, I choose to believe my most trusted advisor and I don't see anything wrong with it. Rango trusted you too much and that led him to his demise. You probably wanted to get rid of me and the boy and then rule the village as you please." He paused, then continued. "You killed our leader. Therefore you will be executed."

"I have the right to appeal to the rightful heir to the throne."

"Indeed you do." The loud one looked towards the boy. "The young heir of Arankoo family, do you wish to pardon Mechett, the healer?"

"No. I am not pardoning the one who killed my father. And hereby, I appoint Head Elder Ooba, as my lead advisor until I have completed all the trials."

"This is betrayal!" Mechett cried as the guards tied his hands and legs behind his back with a rope, then hung him from a pole. He was in for the harshest punishment – he would be tied up on the top of the nearby mountain's summit with his arms and legs broken and left to be devoured by whatever beasts find him first. No funeral, no name mentioned in the village's songs of remembrance.

The elders went outside carrying their prisoner. Kerida approached them, but they thrust their spears at her. Behind them she managed to see her husband's face for one last time. She looked at Mechett and realised he was trying to tell her something.

"Take the children and run to the forest and head to the other side,” she read from his lips. “Don't ask me anything." Ooba walked to her slowly, the boy standing next to him.

"Kerida, he is going to be staked out and punished. Rango's only son is to break his legs. As his wife, you can choose to be present or not.”

"I don't want to witness that. Neither do I want our children to be there."

"In that case, go home. We will discuss your fate once we determine if you were involved."

"If I was involved in…what exactly?"

"Shut up!" the boy yelled, spitting in Kerida's face. He reached out to hit her, but Ooba grabbed his hands.

Further away, the advisor to the Head Elder called the two guards over to him.

"Everything is going the way it should. The boy is not going to be a problem. He lives and breathes hate."

"And Ooba?" The taller guard with a bird skull on top of his head was suspicious.

"Ooba is a ninety-snows-old lurdo who does not remember what he ate earlier in the day. If he died tonight, that would be suspicious. If he dies in one moon, however…we can accept that his flame burnt out."

"How about Kerida and her two brats?" The shorter guard with an eye patch reminded the advisor.

"I am almost certain that they will leave the village tonight. In a day or two, we will go after them. Once we find them, we’ll deal with them."

"With Ooba around? He will quickly turn the boy against us!"

"What he does not know cannot hurt him. We will say that we're going hunting and that will give us plenty of time to come up with a good story. That crescent Mechett talked about is interesting."

"For many moons one of his brats was drawing lines in the sand and carving them in the hut wall. The last time I saw it, the line did resemble a crescent."

The advisor was puzzled.

"Hmm, that one needs to be kept alive, then. After having been frightened for life, of course. There must be some rumours we can benefit from in this case."

The guard with the eye patch clapped his hands.

"The things my daughter has been telling me recently, about that very one of Mechett's brats…could be useful."

"Tell me all about it, then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every single detail in this prologue will matter later in the story.
> 
> If you have read Snowed In and you think you recognised a villain, you're right.
> 
> I have lots of fanon on the differences between the two base tribes of Ewoks, Panshees and Gondulas. Until then, Wook will do.


	2. A Hero Like Me

****_Near Bright Tree Village, Happy Grove circa 3.5 ABY_**  
  
** The warrior circle was meeting in the Land of Dandelion Warriors, a seemingly abandoned meadow peppered with stray urchins. They wandered away from their side of the forest for the first time since the Sunstar had been destroyed; after the Skull Ones had chased the Duloks away from their swamp and started building an Evil Lair for themselves. It was an arid summer day, reminiscent of the times of the great forest fire three snows ago.  
  
"Scout Gwig!" Tippet yelled at a blue-hooded wokling, who nodded before even knowing what he was about to be ordered to do. "Put a leather robe on and go search for star urchin quills. Master Logray may need them for his antidotes and potions. They once saved the life of one Deej Warrick. Wunka! Go help the wokling out...gather all the regular quills in a barrel. They will come in handy on the bottom of our new traps for the Skull Ones."  
  
"Do I get a leather robe, too?"  
  
"No."  
  
Wunka mumbled a barely audible "k'vark". After the Council of Elders determined that he had willingly exposed three young Ewoks to danger and refused to listen to other hunters' warnings about a witch of the Night Spirit; he was sentenced to six whole moons of life as a plain scout. He looked at Romba; the small, light-furred Ewok who filled his old position and snarled in anger. Romba just waved to him, assuming that his fellow warrior was smiling.  
  
"He thinks he'll make up for his height with his agility." Wunka continued talking to himself, while Gwig had already started searching through the quills. "That's not going to happen. Neither with him, nor that youngest Warrick...where the Night Spirit is that fleebog of a wokling, anyway?"  
  
Gwig somehow managed to hear the last thing Wunka said and immediately ran to Tippet.  
 **  
**"Master Tippet! Master Tippet! Wicket Warrick is not here!"  
  
Tippet glanced at the warriors preparing the terrain for target practice. He failed to spot any of the Warricks, not just Wicket. He did not see the infamous gurreck skull headdress either – Teebo, hero of the Griagh assault and the carrier of the Sacred Horn of the Soul Trees was missing as well. He shook his head and headed to Chief Chirpa's nephew.  
  
"Paploo, where are your friends today?"  
  
"The Warricks are preparing to leave to the enclave. Weechee, Widdle and Wicket couldn't have been here; they need to help their parents with the cattle and luggage. And Teebo...I don't know. He's got a lot to do these days – the Council of Elders appointed him as the Voice of the Young Ones; Master Logray needs him as well. He could be anywhere."  
  
"Good for him, then. But if you see him, remind him that his warrior duties should come first. His powers are certainly helping him with handling the axe, he is good on the glider like his father, but he is notoriously bad with everything else and needs a lot of practice...not to mention discipline."  
  
Tippet adjusted his hood and called the young scout over again.  
  
"Gwig?"  
  
"Chak, Master Tippet?"  
  
"After you're done finding those star urchin quills, go back to the village and find Orbo, the bordok stable cleaner. Tell him that I sent you to get the droppings out of the hay today...and tomorrow."  
  
"B-but, Master Tippet! I have a play date with my friend, M…"  
  
"It's not nice to tell on other people. Now run along!"  
  
...  
  
Teebo was not that far away. He was enjoying some quiet time with his girlfriend, Latara. Hunched on the edge of the cliff, he was running his hands through the white blossoms he struggled to keep in bloom beyond the flower season by use of nature powers.  
  
Needless to say, Latara loved those little flowers.  
  
The two had been together for only a couple of moons, but loved each other for many snows before. Knowing that a storm was inevitable, despite their numerous obligations, they were doing whatever it took to see each other, at their secret place, every morning and evening.  
  
"Do you like my new song, Teebo?" Latara asked. "Teebo? Are you even listening?"  
  
"I am, I am…just let me focus on something for a moment. I almost made it!"  
  
Teebo placed his thumbs on his head, right below his ears. He closed his eyes, started grinding his teeth and took a deep breath. Latara smirked and looked to the hills and mountains barely visible in the distance, as her boyfriend was now mumbling something in the language of magic.  
  
He opened his eyes. The flowers before him were no longer white. Some of them seemed almost translucent, fog-like, while the others were of various shades of pink and red.  
  
"T-this is not what I wanted to do!" he thought to himself. "I wanted to make some of them violet and grey…and write her name with those. K'vark! Time for the other plan…"  
  
Latara shrugged, took her flute and played her new song, again. Just as she was finishing it, she felt a flower wreath find its way to her neck. She turned around to see Teebo kneeling behind her and smiling. He then took her hand to kiss it.  
  
"So, that's what he was doing!" she thought to herself and placed his hand on her chest.  
  
"Listen to my heart beating."  
  
After a couple of seconds of giving her a blank, terrified stare, he pulled his hand out, as if she was on fire.  
  
"I-I'm sorry!"  
  
"He is sorry?" Latara thought. "I want to be touched there; I want his six fingers all over me. We have been together since the snows have melted. Why is this still a problem?"  
  
She lay on her boyfriend's lap. The smell of the colourful flowers still lingered. Wrapping the stray end of the wreath around her finger, she was quiet for a while. Then she sighed, snuggled up to him and presented him with what appeared to be a riddle.  
  
"Arandee, Teebo…something has been on my mind for a while." She turned her head and looked straight into his eyes. "What is love? I more or less have an idea on how to define it, how about you?"  
  
"That is one tricky question, isn't it? Can you tell me what you think it is first?"  
  
Latara was confused. Her boyfriend was never the kind to respond to a question with another question. Nevertheless, she had an answer ready.  
  
"Love is certainly more than just words. After everything that has happened, I’m pretty sure that love is also much more than…racing for the light spirit stuff the way warrior apprentices race for their belts of honour."  
  
"Funny that you said that, as, while lying blind and motionless for nearly three moons, I realised we're more than colours and shapes, and that the light spirit stuff isn’t bad…”  
  
Latara grinned, as her eyes lit up. But Teebo continued.  
  
“...at some point. When it's not planned, expected. When your feelings for somebody are so clear that they can feel what you feel."  
  
Her grin first turned into a frown, and then she pouted, clenched the flower wreath in her fist and tossed a handful of flowers in Teebo's face, sticking her tongue out at him. He frowned, unsure what to make of it and whether to try and re-assemble the wreath using his magic.  
  
"What did I do?"  
  
"You lurdo! I thought you meant that you want to be like Master Logray or something!" she whispered and turned around to face him, playfully reaching for his teeth necklace.  
  
"Like Master Logray? In what exact way? I already have an animal skull on my head, but what else?"  
  
He was puzzled. They kissed for a while and then, as usual, took to their gliders and went separate ways, in order not to return to the village at the same time.  
  
...  
  
Wicket was still sitting on his hammock, not pleased about having to leave to the enclave. The more he thought about it, the more he noticed that he had not been happy about anything recently.  
  
How could a hero like him be so jaded, all of a sudden? How could he feel the way he had been feeling for almost one whole moon now? What had suddenly happened and why did everything have to change with the arrival of the Skull Ones and their awful fire sticks?  
  
For a couple of moons, everything was perfect - he was a newly-initiated warrior, he was training with the older, more experienced Ewoks and two of his best friends. And then, just out of the blue, everything crashed to the ground, like an unexpected landslide.  
  
He was completely sure that he could never respect, let alone love a tall, hairless being like those whom the village now feared. Not even one of their woklings, whatever they looked like. They were so evil, so sly, that even the vilest of Duloks seemed harmless in comparison.  
  
In front of the hut, his mother was saying goodbye to her friends.  
  
"Don't worry, Shodu. We will be checking your home every couple of days." Zephee patted her friend on the back. Bozzie and Batcheela nodded.  
  
"Chak, we will make sure we check for bugs and pests every now and then."  
  
Shodu smiled and looked away. Having married a Warrick and given birth to four children, she always had a lot on her plate. But this time it was more than she ever thought she would be able to handle. Her reckless firstborn and her adventure-hungry husband had been chosen to lead a small group of families to an enclave about a half day's walk from the village, to the south. This enclave was the brainchild of master Logray, who had determined that a group of settlers would be useful for warning the village of whatever Skull Ones were up to and, at the same time, producing additional crops, in case somebody poisoned the village's principal fields and orchards.  
  
And nobody asked her, Shodu Warrick, if she even liked the sound of that. Nobody was asking anybody if they liked anything these days.  
  
Deej Warrick was waiting for his family, leaning on the bordok cart on the main stairway. He had said goodbye to Chief Chirpa and his daughters earlier that day and he was ready to go. Little Winda was pulling the front end of his hood and giggling, causing him to be even more impatient. What was taking his sons and his wife so long?  
  
Then he spotted his pride, the three young warriors. The oldest and the middle were carrying a crudely-carved piece of a tree trunk and the youngest one trailed behind them, dragging his small feet and carrying only a single box. Then he got in his brothers' way.  
  
"Hurry up, everybody! We are not leaving for good, remember?"  
  
"I know, dad!" Widdle stopped for a moment to catch a breath. "But we are having problems with Winda's crib. It's too heavy!"  
  
Only then did Deej spot his youngest son. When did that little rascal become invisible?  
  
"Wicket, what are you doing? Why are you staring at that wooden box? We need your help here!"  
  
"He's not even letting us pass." Weechee protested. "Wicket, what is wrong with you? Lurdo!"  
  
Wicket shrugged and finally moved out of the way, completely ignoring his brothers and the crib. Once they all were on the forest floor, he spotted somebody running behind him, all the way from the glider launch and landing site.  
  
"Hey, Wicket! W-wait up!"  
  
Teebo arrived just in time to see his best friend leave. Seconds before he reached Wicket, he somehow managed to trip on his own feet. He got up and grinned. Wicket gave him a blank stare.  
  
"I'm sorry; the wind was not the best this morning. So glad you didn't leave in the meantime."  
  
"No, you're not sorry." Wicket thought. "You will never care about me again now that you have your girlfriend." He was close to saying it all out loud, having noticed pink flower petals on his friend's fur. But he had matured enough to bite his tongue.  
  
"You smell really nice today." He said and picked a petal off Teebo's dark striped fur. "Like a true warrior."  
  
"I don't understand what you mean. I ran like the Gorge of Fire to say goodbye. So…goodbye. Hope this won't last long." Teebo was close to tears. He reached out to shake hands with his friend.  
  
"Goodbye, chak…" Wicket placed the wooden box in Teebo's hand. "Please, keep this safe. I wouldn't want Malani to open it and giggle about my…secrets."  
  
"I don't think she is into you anymore...but I may be wrong. I can't wait for this, whatever it is, to end, so we could go fishing or camping like we used to."  
  
"No, you don't."  
  
"I…do?!" Teebo scratched his head.  
  
"Wicket, hurry up, will you?" Weechee stood in front of the bordok cart, with Deej, Shodu, Widdle and Winda already inside. "You will have plenty of time to talk to Teebo when we're back!"  
  
"I'm sorry for keeping your family from leaving!" Teebo picked Wicket up and hugged him and then awkwardly placed him on the front cart seat, next to Weechee. "And I hope you will find friends to spend the time with at the enclave. I will be missing you, my friend."  
  
Warricks' cart was slowly catching up with three other carts in the distance. Teebo looked on until it disappeared from sight and then climbed back to the village, solely to see Latara, Paploo and Kneesaa waiting for him. Paploo was laughing.  
  
"Did you just…carry Wicket to the cart? How romantic." He rolled his eyes.  
  
"Paploo, you smell of bordok droppings." Latara sniffed the air. "With whom exactly did you get romantic?"  
  
"Arandee, it's not my fault that wokling scout sent out to bring me back was stinky, but he didn't really have to pull me by hand. At least I don't smell of flowers." Paploo batted his eyes at Teebo again.  
  
"T'hesh, will you? Stop arguing, there was a good reason I sent scouts for you!"  
  
The three Ewoks turned to Kneesaa, who put her hand over her mouth, apparently surprised by her own yelling. Then she realised she was tapping her foot and quickly took a step back.  
  
"My father wants to see the four of us. Immediately. He didn't want to disclose anything…not even to me."  
  
"I think we're in trouble…"  
  
The four friends headed to the Royal Hut. ** _  
_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dandelion warriors, also known as Fftssfft appear in the Ewoks cartoon episode To Save Deej and..well, you'll have to read about them to get them. Weird creatures. And yes, they have quills, not needles and the special, rare quills are called star urchin quills.
> 
> The fire referenced at the end of the first paragraph takes place in the Ewoks pilot, The Cries of the Trees.
> 
> For other events described in that paragraph, as well as the Sacred Horn of the Soul Trees and Teebo's warrior status, refer to Shadows of Endor.
> 
> For the reasons for Wunka's punishment, refer to Snowed In - he made a bunch of mistakes that almost got everybody killed.
> 
> Orbo, the bordok stable cleaner, appears in the Ewoks cartoon episode Just My Luck. HE IS CANON.
> 
> Run like the Gorge of Fire - an in-universe attempt of "Run like Hell". The Gorge of Fire appears in the first Ewoks comic, The Rainbow Bridge.


	3. The Chosen Four

Chief Chirpa was observing the four adolescent Ewoks, sitting in silence at the large, two hundred snows old dining table in the Royal Hut's largest chamber. He had rehearsed everything he was to tell them, but once they arrived, he was lost for words. With light coming through the rounded window from high above the treetops and landing on the young ones' fur, they suddenly seemed so different. Were they actually younger in the dark? And when on Endor did they change so much?

Over the last couple of snows, Kneesaa had been slowly losing the childish streak he loved, something he never got to enjoy with his older daughter. Each time he looked at her, she seemed worried, and there were a couple of occasions where he could swear by the Great Tree that she called him "dad" and not "father".

His flamboyant nephew Paploo, sitting next to Kneesaa, was getting more and more unpredictable with every single season that passed by and every single task put in front of him. There were the times when he truly looked like somebody who would put both himself and others in danger, or do something incredibly outrageous - for no reason other than showing off and competing with other warriors.

And then there was Teebo, Paploo's polar opposite, once upon a time a foolish creature with his head in clouds and appearance so delicate that it was hard to tell if he was male or female. Now, with a gurreck skull headdress and dark striped fur, his once calm green eyes almost looked menacing.

The last in line was Latara, one of his daughter's friends that he was never truly able to see through and figure out. He knew that some of the members of the Council of Elders, including the Head Elder Kazak himself, were using harsh words to describe her and that Bozzie once called her "Trouble", but other than that, she was a mystery.

For the first time since his warrior apprentice days at the very end of the Ewok-Dulok wars, the leader of the tribe had started to doubt himself.

Were these four young Ewoks truly ready for what he needed them to do?

Having forgotten what his approach was supposed to sound like, Chirpa put his elbows on the table and asked only one, simple question.

"So, why do you think you're here?"

To his surprise, all four seemed apologetic and panicked.

Teebo got up and stuttered his apology first.

"I am sorry that I did not attend the warrior meeting this morning. If anybody has seen me with Latara earlier…I had to ch-check on a lantern bird nest…and she offered to accompany me."

"Chak, chak! Mistress Fashkaa didn't need me so early today." Latara nodded, taking her boyfriend's hand. "After the Hood Festival was relocated to the main square, there were a lot of things we simply didn't have to make anymore."

"Arandee, uncle. No matter what Salina says, I did not wink at her and I most certainly did not attempt to slap her behind!" Paploo grinned and crossed his fingers behind his back, while awkwardly waving with the other hand.

"Was there a Council of Elder meeting I was supposed to be at, d…father?" Kneesaa seemed to be genuinely surprised by what she could have done wrong. "I've been so preoccupied with the scrolls about the past of our village these days, that I just…"

Chirpa shook his head and started drawing imaginary circles on the table with his big finger. He was not Kazak to enjoy the fear of the four adolescents admitting they have done something wrong, with nobody even asking them about it. He expected more confidence, more responsibility. This was not what he was looking for, but he had no other choice. He had to carry on with his plan.

"The four of you showed great bravery during the Griagh assault. While I awarded only one at the ceremony" - he pointed to Teebo's horn - "this in no way means that the other three did not deserve any honours. Most importantly, you have proven that you are fully adult and capable of making right decisions when it matters."

"Father, what does that mean?" Kneesaa was confused.

"At this point, I would be inclined to say 'apparently, nothing', since you all just admitted to breaking rules. And you were taught the rules for behaviour in case of imminent danger - long before you begun your apprenticeships. Always put your village before everything else. Report to your Master every morning. Do not miss any events important for your group."

"I didn't break any of these!" Paploo protested.

Latara giggled and leaned on the wall behind her. "You broke pretty much all other rules in existence!"

"Silence!" Chirpa clapped his hands. "I have a task for you. "Logray and I will give you maps indicating nearly all settlements on our side of Endor, all the way to the north most edge of the Symoom desert. You will travel to each and every one of them and let the inhabitants know what is going on. Tell them that the plague of the Skull Ones is upon us and that the dark days from Logray's visions have arrived. Teach them how to defend themselves."

"Together?"

"Yes, together. Two males, two females. My daughter will act on my behalf and do her best to represent the royal family of the Bright Tree Village. While I don't like the fact that we are separating, this will be an experience she would have had to gain, sooner or later."

"Paploo and Teebo, you will demonstrate all you have learned so far, as warriors. Also, you have to be very careful when it comes to magic. A whole tribe of Tulgah has been taken into slavery by the Skull Ones, for the sole reason of being magical. You must not reveal that you know magic."

"But I don't know it either way, uncle."

"He's talking about me."

"That is right, Teebo. You still have a gift and, given what has been going on recently, you might want to keep it for yourself."

"But…I need my magic. I am a shaman, first and foremost."

"When you kneeled before me and accepted the Sacred Horn of the Soul Trees, you made a promise to serve the village in times of need. I allowed you to bypass the warrior apprentice status because, frankly, we needed a large spearman, confident with leading scout. And then Tippet reports that you cannot seem to be able to handle a spear without magic. What is that about? Remember what Logray once told you – rely on yourself first."

Teebo wanted to respond to that, but Chirpa turned to Latara.

"How is your shoulder wound these days? Has it healed?"

"Chak, my chief. It only hurts when I'm...never mind." She grinned.

"Your responsibility will be to take the fire sticks with you and show other beings how to handle them. We have recently taken down a dozen of Skull Ones and got more. You can show them how to aim, but also how to escape when the red fire comes out."

"What about the little lever on the side? I pushed it four times when I used it, but…"

"Tak accidentally pushed it only three times in practice and somehow managed to stun himself for a while. I guess it may come in handy, but – for the love of the Soul Trees – make sure you are not aiming at yourself. Also, the fire sticks seem to die after some time. I think they are alive. Now, if we only knew how they bred…"

The group was silent for a while. They all seemed surprised. Eventually, Kneesaa spoke.

"Do we have to do anything before we leave, father?"

"Nothing. Master Logray will prepare the scrolls, as well as any possible repellent, remedy and cure you may need on your way. Talk to your parents." – Chirpa looked at Teebo and Latara and then turned to Paploo – "I already spoke to Bozzie, she was honoured."

"Didn't dad die like this? During a mission, before I was even born?"

"We will talk about that some other time."

Paploo let a barely audible snarl and, once he saw his uncle's back, kicked the nearby empty chair. He kicked it too hard and the next moment, he squeaked from pain. Luckily, Latara was not looking at him this time; otherwise she would've had a clever remark about his misfortune once again. He rolled his eyes and tried to keep calm.

"You are to leave in two days."

"Two days? But...but the Hood Festival!" Latara frowned. "This was the first time I was involved with it. Now I won't get to see the woklings' reaction!"

"Chak, not to mention countless opportunities for..."

"Paploo!" Kneesaa gasped. "What demon has gotten into you these days?"

"Sometimes, one has to sacrifice the little pleasures for a greater cause." Chirpa put an end to the discussion. "You are free to go now. I still have to tell the Council about my decision, but your presence is not required. In fact, you will save yourselves from pulling your own fur if you're not present." He turned to his daughter. "Kneesaa, you are coming with me."

The princess swallowed a lump. The meetings would often to last until dawn and were full of arguments, most of them initiated by Head Elder Kazak and a couple of other Elders.

...

Teebo was heading home, carrying a bunch of scrolls from the observatory. He was passing by the supply hut and remembered that his parents asked him to bring back some fruit. Just as he was about to get in, somebody pushed him and closed the bolted door behind both of them. He turned around, expecting another one of Paploo's common pranks.

But it was not Paploo. Standing there was Paploo's mother, Bozzie. And she looked worried.

"You must help me!" She pulled him by his chest fur, nearly weeping. "Help me, Teebo, you are my only hope!"

"I would be glad to, but how? And why the secrecy?"

"I am so worried that my baby Paploo will make the same stupid mistake!"

At this point, Teebo dropped all of the scrolls on the floor and Bozzie's grasp was so tight that he feared she would pull a handful of fur from his chest...and she knew how long it took to grow.

"Same as who?" He asked her. "When? What do you think he is going to do?"

"You have access to Logray's scrolls. I have two handfuls of dangleberry seeds. You are going to make a batch of Blue Fire juice and slip it into his food once a day, throughout the expedition."

"What is Blue Fire?"

"I am not good with medicine, but it's rumoured that a man drinking it cannot father a child. And I know young ones. I know them all too well. They are looking for challenges the moment they step their foot out of the Happy Grove! I don't want my baby to be somebody's deadbeat father and not know it!"

Teebo nearly chuckled. The tone Bozzie spoke in was ranging from cringeworthy to downright bizarre, yet she looked genuinely worried. It was hard not to laugh.

"He wants women and I know he will find at least one on this trip! I am concerned...why doesn't he just look up to you and just wait until the day his and his wife's Soul Tree saplings burn together?"

"But, Bozzie, I am..."

"I know! You are the most wonderful young man I know." She finally let him go and placed a slobbery kiss on his cheek. "Thank you for doing this for me!"

Seemingly happy, Bozzie dashed out of the supply hut. Teebo shrugged at his own shadow on the wall, then thanked the Great Tree for not having a mother like Bozzie.

And then, not even knowing why exactly, he burst out laughing, in the middle of gathering the scrolls from the floor.  
…

Kneesaa's fears proved to be completely justified. The sun had set long ago and the Council of Elders meeting was still going on. While she was doing her best to understand her irresponsible friends, who were constantly baiting each other, she had little to no understanding for the Elders. The youngest among them was seventy snows old, the oldest around two hundred. They had no excuses to act like woklings.

As usual, the one making every single thing hard and talking more than everybody else combined was Kazak, the Head Elder.

"So, let me clarify this again, Chief Chirpa. We are surrounded by the Skull Ones, we need messengers to get help and warn other villages and you have chosen your daughter, your nephew and two of their friends...out of all Ewoks?"

Chirpa sighed. His loudest critic had asked the same question four times already.

"I am sure, Kazak. If this does not convince you that the future chieftess is sitting right next to me, nothing will. And I know you have nothing against my nephew, Paploo. So, what is the problem?"

"The warrior circle is turning into a wokling nursery. First it was the youngest of the Warricks, despite his height, and now it’s that clumsy, overgrown apprentice of Logray's. What good can he bring to a mission? He could not capture a titterbug. He is not capable of…of…taking care of a drawing of a chicken, let alone an actual chicken! And he is your chosen Voice of the Young Ones, yet he is not here!"

"I told him not to come to this meeting. I sent him to find the maps instead. He does not have much time to copy them, therefore..."

"He would have had enough time had he been paying attention to his obligations. We are not impresed." Kazak seemed to be running out of things to say. "Arandee...why is Paploo going on this mission, when we need him here?"

"No, we don't!" Chirpa was losing patience at this point. "He almost always goes on missions with Weechee, Widdle and Wicket Warrick, who have departed to the enclave this morning. His three new comrades took part in the latest pilgrimage to the Tree of Light nearly three snows ago, therefore, they know what to expect from him."

The great leader turned to Rabin, who nodded and got up.

"Kazak, at this point, we should give the foursome a try and see what happens. Think of this from a point of a view that suits you: you dislike and doubt them, they won't annoy you while they're gone."

"And perhaps they will never come back." Kazak thought to himself. He observed everybody present. Some members of the Council were already falling asleep. Princess Kneesaa swallowed a lump and turned away when she realised he was looking at her. In contrast to his daughter's timid glance, Chirpa's remained focused and confident. No matter how many times he had tried so in the past, the Head Elder was not able to break him.

Finally, he banged his hammer. "Wise words, Rabin, as far as I'm concerned. Shall we vote? Who is in favour of Kneesaa, Paploo, Latara and Teebo taking this mission?"

Everybody raised their hands. A couple of Elders were sporting beaming grins.

"I'm guessing this is a chak, huh, Kazak?" Chirpa's eyes shifted to the Head Elder.

"Well...chak."

"Great. I need to sleep. I want to spend tomorrow bonding with my daughter and you have wasted a lot of my time."


	4. Departure

The next day, four young Ewoks spent some time bonding with their families. Bozzie's suggestion of having a meal together was cut short by the fact that almost everything she wanted to serve was rotten, spoiled or dried out. She barely managed to save some bits of vegetables for one last warm stew for her son to gulp before the mission.

"I wish there was ice in the summer." She looked to Paploo, who was preparing his who was preparing the new backpack he had just gotten from Fashkaa, the head hoodmaker. "Some way to keep things from spoiling when you're NOT keeping them in the supply hut. Why doesn't Logray invent something like that already?"

There was no response.

"Paploo, my baby! Are you even listening to your mother?"

"I'm sorry...what was the last thing you said?" He shrugged.

Bozzie shook her head. She had a whole speech ready, the same she had been repeating in her head, over the years. She was close to telling Paploo something that only she and her brother knew, something the royal family of the Bright Tree Village made sure to hide over the years. But there he was, playing with his slingshot and laughing at the names of some villages listed on a piece of parchment, just like he would have two, five or seven snows ago. Perhaps the time wasn't right. But when would it be?

Seemingly, a part of her just wanted to shout it all out. Twenty snows of living a lie was too much.

...

The group assembled on the main square at dawn. Nobody besides their families, Chief Chirpa and Master Logray seemed to be interested in saying goodbye to them, not even Head Elder Kazak. 

Kneesaa was hiding her face in the mane of her beloved bordok, Baga, so that her three comrades would not realise how worried she was. She was trying to understand the reasons for everybody's lack of support for the mission. The morning was the only time when the heat would subside, so perhaps the villagers just wanted to catch some sleep? Or were they scared? If so, of what? The Sunstar had been destroyed almost one moon ago, but since the Skull Ones did not burn the forest down and take everybody away, the Golden One must have answered Logray's prayers. Was this the time when her people were questioning their beliefs?

"I'll be missing you." She ran her fingers through Baga's silky mane. The bordok neighed and rubbed his head against her chest. "But Father and Aunt Bozzie will take good care of you while I'm gone. Just try not to be too much trouble, please!"

A couple of steps away, Lumat was staring at the tiny wooden flask hanging from Teebo's neck. His daughter's lover seemed to be doing all he could for their eyes not to meet and that was becoming slightly unnerving. The carpenter pulled his wife's hand, annoyed.

"Zephee, do you see that thing he's wearing, among the gurreck teeth on his necklace?"

"Chak, I assume it's some sort of an antidote, so he doesn’t have to reach for his pouch and backpack."

"No, it's not. Didn't you do anything crazy before you met me?" He shook his fist. "I knew Logray was an old fool, but if he really, really gave that lurdo dream herbs essence, then he deserves to be..."

"I did not give my apprentice any dream herbs." Logray spoke from behind Lumat and Zephee. "The young ones are not summoning spirits and dancing to the moon, they're letting others know about the great danger. But you, you could use some dream herbs tonight. You seem to be missing them a lot...and you sound and look like you have not slept for a good few days." 

Lumat grumbled something unintelligible. Logray was trying his best not to laugh. He had stayed up all night himself, preparing remedies and trying to trace any other shaman he knew of with his crystal image spinner. But his Tulgah friends from the seaside were not responding, and neither was Gordo, the Gupin colony healer. The latter was more of a concern, since Logray knew that the Gupin fortress was probably one of the safest places of Endor. 

"Young ones. I have given Kneesaa the most accurate map of settlements and I have listed all the places in the most convenient order for visiting them. However, I would like you to head to the Grasslands and check on Gupins first. It's been a long time since I have heard from my friend Gordo and I am aware that you're friends with King Mring-Mring, so you should be welcome there." 

"We will do as you requested, Master." Kneesaa pointed to the map. "And the Gupins will probably spare a hut for us, so we won't have to sleep in the open. I can't wait to see Mring-Mring and Ubel!"

The other three young Ewoks nodded. It was time for the parents and siblings to say goodbye to them. Mothers and fathers were doing their best to look as if they were not the slightest Bit worried. The woklings had a mixed reaction. Wiley and Nippet were cheerful and somewhat glad that their older sister would not interfere with their mischief for a while. Malani, however, was old enough to realise the importance of her brother's responsibilities. She looked on as her father Warok, the last to approach the group, stepped ahead.

"Teebo, wait." Warok stopped his son.

"What is wrong, dad?"

"Nothing. I was just wondering if there was anything else you might have wanted to ask me, anything you forgot?"

Teebo put his backpack on the ground for a moment and gave his father a blank stare. 

"Actually, there is one thing; I am not sure how you will take it...I am slightly bothered by it and, you know, uncomfortable."

"Chak?" Warok was barely able to stop a huge grin from appearing on his face. "Go on, ask your daddy!"

"Can you put Wicket's wooden box of memories somewhere where Malani won't be able to reach it? I know she is all giddy about that little scout trainee now, but I would not want her to snoop through my best friend's secrets, whatever they may be."

"And that is what you wanted to ask me?" Warok's broad grin was turning into a frown.

"Chak, just that. And please, don't touch that box yourself, either. Wicket's keepsakes are sacred to me."

Teebo patted his father on the back and joined the group of friends waiting for him on the stairway. Paploo, Latara and Kneesaa turned around and waved once again. Asha looked on, proud of her younger sister, and then followed Chief Chirpa back to the Royal Hut.

"Daughter…" He turned around. "I would like you to accompany me to the Council meetings while your sister is away. Would that be convenient for you?"

"You know I train scouts during meeting time…" She took a step back, as if their home was someplace else.

"Please. I need somebody strong to help me with the Elders. They barely approved this and now would be the worst possible moment for any disagreements to occur. We don't want to end up like that Gondula village that cut off its ties with pretty much every single Ewok settlement on Endor."

"Who are they?"

"I don't know. Bondo of the Jindas said they were the only crowd his entertainers could never perform for. Mind you, they performed for Gorneesh's Duloks some moons before you returned home."

Asha shrugged and followed her father. The sun was rising and they were getting hungry.


	5. From The Shadows

In the Shadows

 

The four young Ewoks made their way alongside the river, towards the Endorian Grasslands. This time, they decided not to travel in a canoe, since they knew about the waterfall that almost cost them their lives some snows ago . Paploo clearly remembered the strong currents that swept his paddle away back then and he hoped that nobody else did, but a snarky comment from Teebo, of all Ewoks, proved otherwise.

 

“Is everything all right, oh King Paploo?”

 

Paploo wished he had the said paddle handy. Why was Teebo accentuating his name like that and calling him that, after such a long time? Whatever had happened to this lurdo ever since he finally got together with Latara was confusing to him. He was suddenly full of confidence and more likely to hang around with those that should have been hanging out with him, the great Paploo, the most fearless of the fearless. On top of it, Teebo seemed slightly less awkward, which was not much knowing exactly how awkward he had been all his life, but still incredibly annoying.

 

What was he to say when teased by such a ruthless faction-crossing social climber? Had Teebo still been the tiny Ewok who was so often mistaken for a girl by the older villagers, it would have been so much easier. A pat on the back strong enough to make him fall down, a mocking comment about how cute he was, would have solved everything. But now, the little lurdo was too big – he would easily beat him in a fight!

 

Perhaps, this time, he had to resort to…words.

 

“That was not particularly nice of you.” He managed to say, almost surprised that such a tactful sentence came out of his mouth. To his surprise, Teebo patted him on the back, but not in the way he would have patted Teebo some snows ago – he didn’t actually hurt him.

 

“I was joking. I’m sorry if that upset you.” Teebo tried to smile, but each time he did after what happened in that strange lair, he looked threatening. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

 

“Are you performing one of your stupid magic tricks on me?” Paploo looked the other way, vaguely remembering that his friend could, in theory, look at others and make them say what he wanted them to say. “Am I supposed to accept what you just said as the truth?”

 

Latara stepped forward. “Paploo, cut it out.”

 

“Why don’t you tell your boyfriend to cut it out? He started it!”

 

“Maybe, but you took it to far and we…” She stopped for a moment, which was unusual for her. “…we are not obliged to put up with your sad little beetroot and what it has to say.”

 

What, just what did she say? How dare she? His beetroot was absolutely not sad and definitely not little, either! And it was not talking…if it did, it would never want to talk to her!

 

“Says who? The Bright Tree Village’s future bordok cart?”

 

Chak, she should have known better. Similar arguments on her very first expedition almost cost the whole tribe all of its young and capable warriors. But he should have known better, too; he was so much more reasonable this last snow. Had he been especially annoying during the reign of the Sun King or did it just seem that way? And she was so not the bordok cart– for her it was always about getting Teebo and keeping him, whatever it took, even when she didn’t want to admit it. It wasn’t as though she had offered anything to anybody ever! So, how dare Paploo imply that?

 

“Something is rustling in the bushes.” Kneesaa waved her hands to the other three, but nobody seemed to be listening to her. Latara was patting her firestick in its harness, almost as if she was threatening Paploo. Teebo just stood there, with a confused expression on his face, apparently unsure of what he had done in the first place. Why were they all such lurdos sometimes? Why was she the only responsible one?

 

And then, there was a lot of noise out of nowhere.

 

“Danvey!” Kneesaa yelled and pulled Paploo so hard by the bib of his hood that a piece remained between her fingers. Teebo followed and pushed Latara down, narrowly escaping what seemed to be an unexpected flash of red light. Another one followed and he extended his hand to stop it. He was almost surprised at what he did, as if it had been a natural reflex.

 

The Skull One facing Teebo stopped shooting for a moment, then spoke in a voice that reminded the group of their dro-heed friend, Peedee.

 

“You are not going to believe what I just found! I am going to need…”

 

“Latara, what are you doing?” Kneesaa was almost screaming by now. “Fire at that horrible creature!”

 

“I’m about to! I need to remember what to do with the firestick to make the creature pass out and not kill it…but what on Endor is Teebo thinking?”

 

Seconds later, the Skull One fell down with a scream, dropping his firestick. Paploo gasped and bit his tongue, not wanting anybody to have heard him do such an unmanly thing. The whole group then came closer.

 

“I…I did not fire.” Latara was puzzled, almost dropping her firestick. From behind her, Teebo poked the lean body in the dry grass with the tip of his spear. It did not seem to be responding. He poked it again and, just then, found a bolo sling around the Skull One’s neck.

 

“Somebody strangled the evil one!” he said.

 

Kneesaa swallowed a lump, realising that a somewhat larger shadow was behind her.

 

The four Ewoks turned around to see a Dulok in rags that reminded them of those worn by the creatures that seemed to be in command of the Skull Ones – all grey, with some red. He also had a nose ring. Latara snarled and pointed her firestick to the stranger.

 

“Do not fire!” Paploo nearly hit her on the wrist. "I know this one…he lay down his arms in the Battle of the Gorax King last snow season! He is the only Dulok I ever liked."

 

"Yes, that's me.” The Dulok nodded and approached the corpse to take back his bolo slings. “I used to call myself a warlord and now…I would rather forget that I ever had a title of any kind. Just call me Kaalwar."

 

Kaalwar observed the group for about a minute, not saying anything. The fierce girl stopped snarling and put her firestick down, at last. The stockier male and the other girl seemed to be friendly, but the fourth Ewok, the one who had stopped the red fire with his three bare fingers, looked for a moment as if he was about to pass out. Seconds later, he was clinging to the fierce girl.

 

“And you, you sounded the battle cry in that last battle.” Kaalwar continued his conversation with Paploo. “At least I hope it was the last battle. All our battles of the past were futile. So many of my people died, so many of your people died. For nothing. And we failed to see what was coming.”

 

“A-are you sure you are a swamp…I mean, Dulok?” Teebo finally said something. “You don’t sound like one.”

 

Kaalwar was not sure what to say next, having realised that the Ewok who just addressed him was, very likely, the one whom and whose father he and Patrash wanted revenge against.

 

Just then, another voice emerged from the strangled Skull One’s headdress.

 

“What just happened, TK-616? What are those funny screeching noises? What did you want to alert us about…”

 

“Evil spirits!” Latara screamed. The strange voice disappeared, as she started manically shooting into the body with both firesticks. To everybody else’s surprise, Kaalwar rushed to stop her.

 

“That was not wise of you,” he said, taking away the second firestick from Latara. “You shoot like one of them, but you…you don’t know what I know. We have to get away from here, now. I will explain later.”

 

“This is not one of those Dulok traps, isn’t it?” Teebo, who had calmed down a bit stared straight into Kaalwar’s eyes as he spoke.

 

“No, it’s not. Just follow me, we have to get under the waterfall.” The Dulok pointed towards the cliff overlooking the southern edge of Endorian Grasslands. “Now. That’s my hiding place!”

 

Latara shrugged and followed Kaalwar. The others hesitated for a moment, but eventually joined the two. Teebo was dragging his feet behind Paploo and Kneesaa, his right hand on the stone axe until they got into the Dulok’s hideout. The last time he trusted a Dulok with a firestick, he was almost eaten by the Griagh, so why would this one be any different?

 

The three-chamber cave was notably colder than outside, so the group was not surprised to see a fire pit. They sat down – Latara and Paploo next to their unlikely rescuer, Kneesaa closer to the back chambers and Teebo behind the other three, still avoiding the Dulok’s gaze as much as was possible in such a small space.

 

“You! You almost got us all killed!” Kaalwar pointed to Latara. His Ewokese was rusty, as well as muffled by his pointy teeth, but they could still understand him. “If it hadn’t been for me, a dozen of them would have come out after you blasted their special crystal!”

 

“She is sorry about that.” Kneesaa reached out and offered her hand to Kaalwar, knowing that her friend was not likely to admit she was wrong, especially not after the recent confrontation with Paploo. “What kind of a special crystal was that?”

 

“Is it anything like the crystal image spinner?” Teebo asked from the shadow.

 

“Chak and no. These Skull Ones, they have crystals in these…skulls on top of their heads, somewhere closer to their necks. The grey ones, like the one I stole my new vest from, they have small ones and those are pretty, like gems. You speak to those gems and they speak to you. But sometimes, after one has spoken to the crystals, more Skull Ones arrive! They may or may not summon the evil, one never knows! It’s got to depend on the crystals’ will.”

 

The green eyes flashed in the dark. “So these crystals can only summon the Skull Ones? And nothing else? The Skull Ones must be working for the wizards of the Night Spirit.”

 

“I know you’re a shaman…”

 

“Not yet.” Teebo was not quite sure why he denied it, but the words simply escaped his mouth.

 

“…or whatever you may be, but trust me, this is not magic. I have a magic stone that I got from the Yuzzum wizard.” Kaalwar took a small gem out of his pouch. “I was the only one who could figure out how to use it when we had to summon him, but it was hard.”

 

Teebo started coughing and shaking. This was the moment he realised that the Yuzzum Kaalwar spoke of was the hooded creature that disfigured him. He moved a couple more steps back, until Kaalwar could no longer see him. Paploo subtly stepped on Latara’s foot and she nodded.

 

“There is hay bedding in both of the back chambers, in case you are unwell and in need of a rest,” the Dulok said.

 

Teebo just nodded and dragged his feet to the smaller of the chambers. His hands and feet were not listening to him, as if they belonged to somebody else, but he managed to get the fur blanket out of his backpack. The gurreck skull headdress, on the other hand, had never felt as heavy, not even while he was still weak. Taking it off for the night always made his head feel lighter, but this time, the headdress felt heavier than ever and he was sure that he had an ache in his neck. There was a remedy in his pouch, but he suddenly lacked the dexterity to apply it. Where was Latara with her constant groping now, when he actually needed it? Surely she liked him more than she liked the stories of firesticks and other evil weapons of the demons? Surely she liked him more than the Dulok who once served the monster that almost destroyed them both?

 

He ran his fingers through the fur on top of his head, but in his current state he managed to stick a finger into his own eye. And how silly of him was it to forget that he no longer hard a forelock of fair fur? Or that he no longer had  anything that made him young, non-threatening and not boar-wolf-like? Once again, where was Latara to convince him that none of the dark thoughts coming to him were true? Did he just hear her and Paploo cackling along with that Dulok?

 

With one eye open and slowly falling asleep, Teebo realised that Latara was not coming.

 

“So, he was a Yuzzum.” He kept on repeating this, almost talking himself to sleep.

 

In the main chamber, Kaalwar was telling Paploo, Kneesaa and Latara his side of the story.

 

“After the lost battle and Patrash’s death, I ruled the tribe for a couple of moons. Then we made a mistake. We, errr, sought old Murgoob of Gorneesh’s tribe, hoping he could deliver a prophecy about the future. He proclaimed that Kalgoto – the giant Dulok you knocked unconscious, Paploo – would be a better and stronger leader than me. My second-in-command agreed, as did Gorneesh, his bumbling shaman and his wife. The only one who was on my side was Galak, the young Dulok who killed Patrash.”

 

“That one is pretty smart, I recall.” Paploo seemed to have only the best words for Umwak’s nephew. Unlike him, Kneesaa and Latara cackled. They could recall Galak being quite the opposite of being smart – the day when he and his uncle got caught in a sticky net in the Arbo Maze.

 

“Kalgoto was never smart – otherwise he would have killed Galak in the battle and he would have killed you too, Paploo. In fact, I came to realise that Gorneesh was smarter than him and your tribe dealt with him, so you will understand the comparison. The night before the swamp erupted, I had a hunch. I was pretty sure I saw some strange beings in the forest. Nobody listened to me, nobody but young Galak. He urged his uncle to leave the swamp. Gorneesh, Urgah and their bratlings followed.”

 

“So, Gorneesh’s brain did not actually leak through his empty eye socket?” Latara rolled her eyes. “Nice to know. Didn’t seem that way when I was babysitting those bratlings of his some snows ago.”

 

“You did? You poor munyip! Dealing with those, especially prince Boogutt, was worse than taking a bath.”  Kaalwar noticed that all three Ewoks moved away from him. “Arandee, as you say, I live under a waterfall now. Of course I take baths.” He was almost embarrassed.

 

“And what happened then?” Kneesaa asked. “We did not see any of them when Wicket set a bunch of Duloks free some moons ago.”

 

“You did not see me either, right? I don’t know where and how I lost the group, but I have been getting by for quite a while now. I learned how to deal with the Skull Ones and I pray to the Ni…I mean, Light Spirit that I don’t get caught.”

 

Kaalwar stopped to catch a breath, realising he had nothing more to say. Paploo and Latara looked at Kneesaa.

 

“I guess we owe you our side of the story.”

 

“I understand if you don’t want to share it, but – judging by your backpacks – you are probably going somewhere far, far away from here. But…if you really want to come back to your village someday and not feed the trees on your voyage, I will help you. I can tell you all I know about Skull Ones and the Grey Ones.”

 

“What do you ask for in return?” Kneesaa was suspicious.

 

“Nothing. You spared my life once. It was only right that I helped you.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teebo and Paploo's conflict in this episode is a flashback to the season 1 Ewoks episode The Land of the Gupins. Back then, Teebo really made a snarky comment to Paploo after the latter dropped his paddle. Their odd exchanges and rivalry only get worse from then, thought they're subtle. They had a rivalry in the cartoon's pilot episode, too. 
> 
> Danvey - Look out
> 
> Don't know warlord Kaalwar? He was the only villain from Snowed Inthat survived, thanks to realising all he should have realised on time.
> 
> The events Latara is recalling happened in the season 1 episode The Travelling Jindas.


	6. Strongholds to Conquer

"Good morning, honeydrop!"

 

There was no response. Latara leaned over Teebo and tickled him on the chin. He turned around, covering himself over the top of his head. She shrugged and dragged herself underneath the blanket.   
  
“I said ‘good morning, honeydrop’…” she whispered into his ear, running her fingers through his fur. “You know, this is our first morning away from home ever since we got together. And Paploo and Kneesaa are outside, with Kaalwar.”

 

He was shivering. This happened before, but this time, every single hair on his fur was up. She proceeded to kiss him on the lips and he let out a barely audible “mmmhm”.

 

Then, to her surprise, he pushed her away.   
  
“Cut that out!”  
  
She almost fell off the hay bedding, but somehow managed to keep her balance.

 

“Teebo, what is wrong with you?”

 

He pulled the blanket and got up. “What do you think you were doing? I was barely awake.”

  
“In case you forgot, we were in a relationship come yesterday, and for the past couple of moons.”   
  
“A relationship involves caring about each other.” Teebo was not turning around, as if he was avoiding to even look at her.  “You…did not do that last night.”  
  
“What?” She put her hands on her hips and stomped her foot. “I shoot the Skull One to make sure he doesn’t come alive and attack you over your use of magic.”

 

Teebo was now trying to tie the blanket around his waist, like a robe, but still not putting his headdress on. "I was hoping that you would come and check on me, after I left mid-conversation with Kaalwar. I was not feeling well. I needed some pain remedy applied to the back of my head and my neck and I couldn’t do it myself, my hands were simply not listening to me.”

 

“So, that’s the game he’s playing?” Latara thought to herself and batted her eyelashes, solely to slap herself on the face. Why was she being charming when he was _not even looking at her_? She coughed and tried to approach things from her point of view.

 

"I did not come to check on you, because we were never in the same chamber together, alone, with one or both of our hoods off, around any kind of bedding..."

 

"No, we were not.” He nodded and paused. The tone she spoke in was irritating, or so he thought.  "Sure that would be your first idea about it. That _we were never alone_ , and not _that I may be in pain_. You…you see everything through seeing the stars…and, by that, I don’t mean what I do at the observatory.”

 

"Chak, so what? You are my boyfriend, isn’t that normal? I have not explicitly said it since I was drunk at Wicket's coming out of age party, but I drop some hints every now and then. I need to be blunt right now. Do you want to see the stars with me?”

 

"Of course. I want to make you happy. But I already said that..."

 

"...that you want it to be spontaneous. I know. Your reasons, however...I don't understand. Do you like my fur? Do you think I have a pretty face?”

 

"Chak. I don’t think anybody would ever think otherwise. You’re the most b…”

 

She cut him short. "Fine! Do you like how it feels when you touch me?"  
  
“It’s not that simple. This, just like everything else between us, is sacred to me, Latara. I need to know we are both pure and…that I’m free of any thought of the Night Spirit. I cannot lose control of my mind. I already lost it once in the cave of that evil creature, I was close to turning away from the good and becoming a monster."

 

"Lose control of your mind? As in, feel happy, overwhelmed? Come on. You probably do the same thing I do when falling asleep. You know, _thinking of me_."

 

"Chak." The green eyes almost glowed with light for a second. "I do! I picture my Soul Tree in my mind and ask it to give us guidance of the Light Spirit and keep us safe from beasts, forest fires and other dangers throughout the night."

 

Latara was close to hitting her head against the cave walls. "That's right, Teebo...I do that, too. Now, please, excuse me while I throw myself off the waterfall, or something.”  


“Don’t hurt yourself.”   
  
“It’s not like you will see me hurt myself, anyway…you won’t even _look_ at me this morning!”

 

“T’hesh! For Soul Trees’ sake, shut up, both of you!”  
  
Teebo and Latara both turned around, to see Kneesaa standing in the archway.   
  
“Kaalwar and I, we are trying to make sure we survive our quest here.” Her two friends were staring at her with their mouths open. Did she just _yell_ at them? As a matter of a fact, did the princess of the Bright Tree Village _ever_ yell at anybody before? She was suddenly scared of herself. But if this was what it took to put some sense into her friends, then she should not allow them to see it.

 

With one angry “k’vark”, she marched through the larger chamber and went outside, where Kaalwar was waiting for her on the cliff.

 

“I just realised something. You are the leader of this group, right?” he asked.

  
“Chak. How did you guess?”  
  
“The one who hates me was just not made to lead anybody, the other two are hot-blooded and they remind me of the one that dragged me into dedicating all my life to blood revenge. So, it had to be you. You are not assertive enough, but you seem to know what you’re doing.”  
  
“You are wrong.” She shook her head and put another piece of wood in the pit. “None of us know what we’re doing. At this point, I…I almost wonder if the spirits sent us to our demise, by tricking my father into thinking that sending us on an expedition would be a good idea.”

  
Kaalwar cocked his head. He didn’t quite understand what Kneesaa was trying to tell him. But he was still willing to help her and her friends on their quest.

 

…

 

A little later, the group was riding makants through the tall, sun-burnt vegetation of the Grasslands, heading to the southern edge of the desert. The sun season must have been warmer than the one when the forest almost burned down. The tall stalks did not bear anything remotely similar to flowers and fruit and there was no scent, whatsoever.  
  
The Ewoks were all silent, as if they were suddenly a group of complete strangers and not best friends. The most recent time they were here, they could not make the friendly insectoids’ cackling, this time, it was like the makants were having their own discussion over them – chirping, making that sound similar to tongue clicks, nodding and shaking their heads.

 

Every now and then, Kneesaa would count something on her six fingers, trying to remember every single thing Kaalwar told her about. Not assertive enough. Not assertive enough. Comparisons with her sister would have been inevitable back home at the Bright Tree Village. Even Bozzie. Even Paploo. How was she to run the village someday? Not that the idea of her father’s passing did not seen frightening to begin with.

 

Soon, the tall grass gave place to nothing but pale, lifeless soil.   
  
“So, I am the only one who’s never been here and the three of you did not tell me what to look for, yet I happen to be riding ahead of you.” Latara broke the silence. “Like, goopa, we’ve just arrived to the desert. What next?”  
  
Paploo shook his head. Could they have been so strange after their experience with a Skull One and a Dulok saving them that they failed to remember that Latara was not a part of the group when they visited the Gupins back in the days?  


“Oh, k’vark…you are right.” The second part of the sentence always felt like a special kind of a defeat when communicated to Latara, but he managed not to sound rude this time. Was that a victory? “From the empty mouth of this former stream, the Grass Trekkers’ shrine should be to the left and the Gupin Stronghold to the right.”

 

Latara pointed to what seemed to be a pile of purple-grey rocks in the distance.  
  
“Some shrine it is…did they build it with their eyes closed?”  
  
“Eecha! It did not look like that the last time around.” Paploo grabbed his head with both hands. “It was a very rough pile of rocks, but it did look like an actual shrine!”  
  
“I have a bad feeling about this.” Kneesaa finally spoke. “And the makants have been chirping loud all along, but now they almost sound like Skandits!”  
  
“What are they saying, Teebo? Teebo!” Paploo reeled his animal companion towards his friend, the only way

 

“T-they’re saying that magic Grass Trekkers killed the normal ones and that we should run towards…what…I have never heard this word before.”   


Before Latara, Paploo and Kneesaa could say anything, Teebo already directed the makants in the other direction. Seconds later, one of them started chirping loudly again and then, all four stopped before three carcasses.

 

“K’vark!” Paploo put his hands over his face, to block the odour, but still approached the dead. “I did think that they should all be gone, that one time they chased me around this desert, but…this is not a pleasant sight.”

 

“They don’t look like something that should have lived…” Latara attempted to push beak of one dead Trekker out of the way, having seen something below the body. “No accounting for taste, as I always say…”  
  
“Latara! Everything and everybody has the right to live.”

 

“T’hesh! Whatever the third carcass is of, it does not look like it ever lived.”   
  
Kneesaa was about to object to her friend ignoring yet-another-lesson-on-morals, but then she noticed that both Teebo and Paploo seemed intrigued by what Latara just found. Unlike the violet-grey Trekkers, this - whatever it may have been - was silver-grey.

 

“Can you do anything about this?” Kneesaa asked Teebo.

He shrugged and started chanting, his arms extending to the closest leg on the pile. Slowly, the remains of one of the Trekkers started levitating.  


“You are going to stop that!” An orange-haired gnome spoke from behind him. “Right now! They could see you and come back and then we’d all be dead!”

  
“C-chak?!” Teebo was still not sure what happened.  
  
“Come here, now.” The group recognised the voice of their Gupin friend, Mring-Mring. “Follow me.”

 

“Weren’t we friends before?”  
  
“I will explain everything later!” Ubel cut Paploo short. “We have to hide. Now!”  


Before they knew, a bunch of tiny five-fingered hands pulled them towards a hole in the ground.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For information on Grass Trekkers, Gupins, Makants and the characters Mring-Mring and Ubel (as spelled on the animation cel)/Oobel, look no further than the first season Ewoks episode Land of the Gupins.


	7. The Catacombs

“Mring-Mring? Ubel?” Paploo was now being held by both of the Gupin royal brothers, one of them clinging to each of his hands. The little juniper gnomes looked as if they were about to strangle him. He looked to Kneesaa, Latara and Teebo, expecting them to jump to his defense, but just then Mring Mring and Ubel burst out laughing. Ubel patted him on the shoulder. He was confused. His friends just shrugged in unison. He looked at the Gupins again and they were still laughing, now prompting everybody other than him to laugh, too.

“I thought we were about to get killed by…whatever?!”

“You were.” Ubel nodded and clapped his hands. “With everything that has happened here in the past couple of days, I guess it’s a good thing that we can still pull a practical joke on an old friend.” He paused. “Sorry…this is crazy. Everything is crazy. I’m trying to live every day in some sort of perpetual wonder, just because I’m alive. But it doesn’t work. Each conversation I start in a cheerful manner, but then I get incredibly grumpy.” A huge sigh came out of his small chest. “What are you looking at? Follow my brother to our current hideout, I need to help the others mask the entrance, perhaps we could pull one of the silver beasts over the hole.”

Paploo shook his head. This would have been one of those times he was sure would have shortened his life for at least quarter of a moon, one of those situations he would have blamed on his deathbed, many, many snows later. On top of that, this wasn’t the Ubel he knew. This was not the soft-spoken older brother of the former outcast, now king. This grey-haired gnome spoke with an air of impatience, bordering on the most basic of angers. Just what could have happened here?

Mring-Mring led his friends down the catacombs. Unlike Ubel, he was the way the Ewoks remembered him – somewhat childlike in his appearance and mannerisms, but with the confidence of a true king.

"I can't even begin to explain how wonderful it feels to see all of you again after two snows. I wish we were meeting in some better times. The long white ones are patrolling every day and some of us have not seen the light since they arrived." He sighed. "And everything started weeks after that odd star was high in the sky."

Teebo was suddenly breathing faster and shaking. Latara hugged him tightly. Mring-Mring stopped and turned around.

"Did I say something? Also…who are you? I’ve been trying to figure it out; I’m starting to doubt my memory. I know Latara from Wicket, Kneesaa and Paploo's stories, and the last time around there was also...wait. No. It cannot be. You are Teebo. What happened to you?"

"The odd star was not kind to my fur and my face." Teebo managed to say in between two bouts of reliving in his head what could have been his own demise for Tana knew which time. “As for having grown as tall as a Dulok warrior apprentice…that, I’m afraid I have no answer to.”

"I am sorry. I did not know." Mring-Mring’s smile melted into a long face. “Do you still…do the things you do, or did the odd star take your nature powers away?”

“It did not. I can still talk to animals and…I stopped a spark of red death yesterday. It was coming from a firestick!” Teebo extended his hand to demonstrate the situation from the day before. “But you can do that too, right? A Gupin has nature powers and…”

“No. We can change into whatever we want, but we cannot do anything else.” Mring-Mring cocked his head. “I thought you knew this.”

Teebo was puzzled. He never thought of the limitations of Gupins’ powers before.

“Another thing we cannot do is heal a sick creature. And we have a couple of Trekkers that we managed to save from the silver monsters.” The Gupin king pointed to the ceiling and shook his head. “I was there when you talked to a bird, I was there when you summoned a group of makants. Could you help us?”

Paploo interrupted Teebo as he was trying to say something.

“Why would anybody want to save the Trekkers?”

His friend responded in an unusually aggressive manner. “K’vark, and why not? They’re creatures of the Light Spirit just like you and me. Just like Mring-Mring and his friends. They may have brought havoc to the Gupins, but whatever created the silver monsters that look like them is what truly serves the Night Spirit. The Trekkers are as defenceless as we are.” Teebo sighed and lowered his tone, looking to the Gupin king. "I cannot promise anything, but I will try."

With those words, Teebo followed Mring-Mring, while the others continued farther through the corridor. Passing by what looked like a communal washchamber, Kneesaa let out a barely audible sigh.

…

The new Gupin settlement was nothing like the large flower-garden-inside-of-fortress that they used to inhabit. It was so deep below that no single tree root was in sight. Everything looked bleaker than bleak. There was nothing but soil, rocks and an occasional worm.

“No wonder Ubel can no longer smile.” Kneesaa scratched the wall next to her, the dark soil leaving traces on her white fur. A worm crawled out and she recognised it as a ra-lugg. “This place is slow death. I would not want to be here.”

“The only other option is fast death above.” The female Gupin in charge of finding space for the four Ewoks in the improvised dormitory did not seem to be the kind to comfort her guests. She showed the Princess the way to an improvised wash lake.

“Whatever is going on, we must have been cursed. We have done something wrong, all of Endor has. No other explanation.” Paploo kicked a pebble and looked at Latara. “Thankfully, your lurdo boyfriend is with the Trekkers, so he won’t get a chance to tell me that I’m wrong about this. Now, if he preaches to me one more time…”

“Then you will shut up. Neither of you is making this easier for us.”

Latara didn’t seem to be in the mood for her usual, brutal jokes. Her anger from earlier that day was a thing of the past. Just what was Teebo doing with those sharp-toothed monsters?

No answer. Paploo shrugged. This lurdo was getting stranger and stranger every day and this morning he clearly looked like he was in pain, cooling his knee in waterfall. Or at least it looked like his knee…

“May I be eaten alive by the Night Spirit.” He thought to himself. “Latara is being Latara, but Teebo…is actually in for…oh, by the Great Tree! He could end up swinging the hammock with her long before I actually find a…willing girl. Chak. Now, what do I do?” He looked towards the corridor separating the Gupin space to the area where Mring-Mring and Teebo left to.

“I must stop him!” He said out loud.

“Sounds like you’re reading my mind.” Latara, still sitting there, rolled her eyes. “The moment I see you looking determined, that’s my first thought – that you must be stopped, regardless of what you’re intending to do.”

Paploo muttered a couple of k'varks under his breath and went to talk to a group of Gupin warriors.

…

Teebo was close to giving up as much as he was close to an actual solution. The language the Grass Trekkers spoke sounded like a chaotic mixture of nonsensical vocalisations. Every now and then, he thought he heard a makant-like chirp, but it could have been the impressions from earlier that day echoing in his ears.

He was at in the middle of the circle of four injured adult Trekkers and one cub, which was unimaginable to Mring-Mring. How could this animal whisperer be so close to those fang-adorned beaks that could so easily maul you if you made one wrong move? Another thing he could not grasp was why he appeared to be talking to the cub and not the adults.

"We are going to try this again." Teebo gently waved his largest finger in front of the cub to get its attention. One of the adults, seemingly in better condition than the other three, gurgled and moved its beak towards him, but backed off almost immediately.

“Eeeee…” the Trekker cub moved to the left, reaching out to Teebo's hand. He rubbed its beak. The adult gurgled again, but Teebo extended the other hand to her beak as well.

“T’hesh!” he whispered and moved his fingers up towards the top of the cub’s skull.

After another “eee”, the adult began to chatter, in a series of less intelligible gurgles. Teebo closed his eyes. He was not yet fluent in the language of magic that his Master had been teaching him for a couple of snows now, but he was doing his best.

"Anything?” Mring-Mring cocked his head. He was certain that he had sung the whole Renewal Ceremony song to himself and Teebo’s hands were still on the Trekker cub’s skull. “Teebo?”

The Ewok finally opened his eyes and turned around. He looked exhausted and his black pupils were visibly dilated, almost covering the green.

“K’vark…”

“Is everything all right?” Mring-Mring waved his furless hand towards Teebo. He didn’t even notice that he took a step back when he saw his friend’s eyes.

“She says that the shiny silver Trekkers did not attempt to engage with her and the others in any way. They came out of nowhere and started…spewing red fire at the group. They destroyed the temple, too.” Teebo stopped to take a breath. “The ruling Trekkers were cornered by the silver ones and brought down with an incredible amount of red fire. She is confused that the red fire does not actually burn.”

“And what do her parents say?”

“Now, that’s a different story – it seems that Trekkers stop being like you and me as they become adults. I am not sure if I understand how that happens, but she does understand her parents’ roars and squeaks. She told me where it hurts them.”

“And then we are going to treat them and they will then wreak havoc through our hideout?”

“No. She assures you that this is not going to happen. I am going to give your healers the list of herbs you can get in the grasslands on your next patrol. But we cannot stay. She told me where the Silver Ones and the Skull Ones have gone and we must follow them.” Teebo sighed again. “I will talk to Kneesaa and then I need to lie down. I have breathed as much will to live as I could into the adult Trekkers and now I am exhausted.” He got up and took a couple of steps, solely to end up leaning on the stone wall. “See?”

“There’s one more thing, Teebo.” Mring-Mring blocked his friend’s way out of the sick place.

Teebo’s eyes were slowly coming back to normal. “What thing? Our bedding here? I don’t care even if the other three sleep on top of me. I need to lie down!”

“No.” Mring-Mring put his hands on his hips. “It’s you. What you do. I have nature powers. How come I cannot hear you among the colours of magic when you’re doing these things?”

There was no response.

"Did Master Logray teach you something?" The Gupin’s bony index finger was now in the Ewok’s fur, touching his chest bone. “Are you courting the Night Spirit?”

Teebo shook his hand and sat down. "Chak.”

It took him a good handful of sighs to look at Mring-Mring’s face again.

“My Master does not know this. He…he says that horrible things may happen to a young wizard who abuses it. I am doing something that he does not allow me to do. And not just one thing. This is not the Light Spirit way of healing, either, but that is how he saved me this snow season. The wizard of the Night Spirit that I had encountered would have killed me otherwise. Another terrible thing that can happen to a young wizard…”

“But you Ewoks had the Sunstar Shadowstone!” The Gupin king was almost afraid of his friend at this point. “He probably used it together with whatever shameful power sav…”

Teebo interrupted him. “We no longer have it. There was something about the Skull Ones’ arrival that drained it. The Sunstar was weak and then…it shattered to small pieces when we killed the Griagh. A…crater remained behind.”

Mring-Mring’s mouth was wide open. He stopped threatening Teebo and stepped back. The Ewok picked him up and hugged him, much like he did Wicket some days earlier.

“Whatever has come upon us, it is clearly the Night Spirit. And the Night Spirit can be fought only with the Night Spirit sometimes,” he concluded, then waved to the Trekker cub and got out. “And I have already traded something in order to live. Just look at me.”

…

The group was to sleep behind an improvised leather screen. Four feather pillows were waiting on a haystack, but there were only three blankets. Kneesaa was already sleeping soundly.

"The two of you can have one...lovebirds." Paploo stuck his tongue out to Teebo. To his surprise, the grey and black striped Ewok just nodded and dragged himself underneath the biggest blanket. A surprised Latara followed.

“Sweet dreams, Latara.” Paploo teased. “And I literally mean sweet, because it will be easier for you to bake honey melon pie than…”

"Eat worms and die, Paploo!” Latara tossed a pillow the young warrior’s way. “Next time I am filling this with pebbles. I am warning you for one last time!”

Teebo turned around angrily. “I want to sleep. Am I talking like an Ewok or like a Trekker?”

"Quiet, you over there!" A lantern illuminated the room and, through the screen, the four young Ewoks could see an old Gupin shaking his fist from a distant corner of the dormitory. "Quiet, or I will find you and you will be sleeping with the Trekker offspring!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't have twenty-something minutes to watch The Land of the Gupins on YouTube or see more on Wook, I tried to simplify things as much as I could.
> 
> Gupins appear in two episodes of the Ewoks cartoon and they're small humanoid shape-shifters who ended up on Endor after one of the numerous starship crashes. They live in the desert, which was referred to both as Symoom and Salma in various sources, close to the narrow strip of Endorian Grasslands, to the North of the Bright Tree Village. Their domicile is the Gupin Stronghold, a lush green oasis on top of a small hill.
> 
>  
> 
> Mring-Mring becomes the Gupin king in The Land of the Gupins, and he makes his older and more no-nonsense brotherUbel the second in command.
> 
>  
> 
> The Juniper Chest is what the Gupins depend on in order to have their shapeshifting ability and to fly properly. Once a year, presumably, they hold an event named Renewal Ceremony, which requires opening the chest with a key and then the light radiates from it, strenghtening Gupins' powers that otherwise weaken as the time passes by.
> 
> Grass Trekkers are a semi-sentient gigantic species living in the Grass Trekker Shrine, a primitive structure made of large rocks/stones. The bit with them losing sentience as they grow old is fanon.
> 
> The two random Gupins are OCs.
> 
> Ra-lugg is essentially a bug, feared by tiny, sentient Fleebogs. In my mind, these live everywhere on Endor.
> 
> Swinging the hammock - a metaphor for getting it on. Most Ewoks sleep in hammocks. Fanon.
> 
> Teebo's animal friendship powers are Legends canon. The rest isn't.
> 
> The Night Spirit (aka darkside) power was previously used in Chapter 21 of Snowed In, where Logray revives Teebo, who was mortally wounded by the story villain's Force powers. Here, Teebo does not directly use a gem, like Logray did with the Sunstar Shadowstone.
> 
> Logray and Teebo use the word "wizard" in the Ewoks cartoon - not medicine man, not shaman. However, Umwak of the Duloks is referred to as the "Dulok shaman".
> 
> The Sunstar Shadowstone's demise Teebo tells of happens in Zack Gialongo's graphic novel, Shadows of Endor.
> 
> I never saw the Ewoks' "magic" as exclusively light side only stuff, so yeah. None of this should come across as shocking.
> 
> Paploo's "it will be easier for you to bake honey melon pie than..." comment to Latara is not an innuendo of any kind. I assume that baking a honey melon pie is a hard task in general, let alone in one's sleep. So, basically, Paploo thinks that baking one such pie, with no honey melons in sight, in the improvised bed, underground, is easier than having Teebo consummate his relationship with Latara.
> 
> A chakbird is something I just came up with, since there are chak cards and chak juice centered around the Ewoks' Festival of Love. Conveniently enough, chak means yes. This would be a phrase similar to "lovebirds" in an Earthly context.


	8. The Road to Skaadra

The next morning, Kneesaa woke up first. The males were still sleeping – Teebo with his feet on the pillow and Paploo kicking the stone wall behind with his feet, drooling and snoring. She didn’t find this as funny as she thought she should have.

Latara was already at the washing area, running a bone comb through the little head fur that had grown since she had sacrificed her braid. She looked at herself in the water and smiled.

“Goopa!” She waved to Kneesaa. “That was the worst night ever. Ever. The boys should have been sleeping together or something.”

The princess cocked her head. Latara continued.

“I woke up with Teebo’s rear in my face in the middle of the night, having only about a handful of hay for myself. Can you imagine that? I must love him very much if I’m putting up with that!”

Kneesaa pulled a strange grimace. But her friend was not paying attention. Not at all.  
“And then I, like, rolled over him and we were face to face. I could feel his breath and I thought that, maybe, we could have some fun. I started by tickling his nose, but…he sneezed into my face! Not that it was the worst that could have happened, he could have done something worse before.” Latara sighed. “Remind me, why do I still want him to…hey, why are you looking at me that way? Kneesaa?”

“Latara, I don’t know if it’s polite to ask you this, but we’ve been close since you returned to the village and we, err, received our hoods together and you borrow trinkets from me all the time and...”

“No, we didn’t, if that’s what you wondered.” Latara cut her friend short and rolled her eyes. “And yes, it bothers me. Not as much as it would bother, say, Paploo, since I do have somebody and he doesn’t, so he’s gone all Dulok about it, but…”

“I don’t want to hear anything about that again!” Kneesaa interrupted her and stomped her foot. Her voice was uncharacteristically loud. “I did not ask you so you could complain, I asked so I could be sure. I am fed up with this. The three of you need to solve the problems with your needs. Isn’t this what makes us different from animals?”

The flutist crossed her arms.

“Answer me!” Kneesaa was persistent.

Latara turned around and didn’t say another word. She put the hood with the fake braid on and went away. Kneesaa could swear that she heard a couple of under-the-breath “k’varks” directed at her.

“Well, eat worms too, then!” She pointed her finger to Latara. “I am no longer willing to put up with beetroots and honeycombs!”

Somebody’s hand was on her shoulder. She turned around to see Mring-Mring. He heard her say those nasty things, she thought and put both hands over her mouth.

“I’m sorry, my friend.” Kneesaa looked down. “These three are making a complete lurdii out of me! I need to…I need to repeat the Three Lessons…now! Now!”

She began to recite the same six lines over and over again.

"The leadership of the tribe is a privilege to be earned  
Before one is leader, three lessons must be learned  
The lesson of the hand will teach both strength and speed  
The lesson of the head is learned when hands do not succeed  
But the lesson of the heart will make the leader strong  
With head and heart together, the hand is never wrong"

By the time her throat was too dry to continue and she had to lean over the improvised underground lake to drink some water, she was nearly screaming her mantra. A blink of an eye later, she was soaking wet and spewing the water out of her mouth.

“Oh, by the Light Spirit! Why don’t all three of them eat worms and die?”

The Gupin helped her out of the lake. She sat down, her face in her hands.

“Kneesaa, are you all right?” He was concerned.

"How do you manage this?" She grabbed the Gupin by his garb. "You are an outcast, the shamed one, the one who did not believe that he was a part of the prophecy, the wingless Gupin who became the king. Yet you seem to be doing better than me. If I ever get to lead the Bright Tree Village Ewoks, we will all crash to the ground! I will end up beating myself with that gemwood tree sceptre! E-e-either that or the others will."

She stopped to drink more water, this time not falling over and then she looked at her friend again. Mring-Mring had only one thing to say.

"See Ubel?"

Kneesaa was offended. "I just poured my heart out to you and you…you just said that?"

"Arandee, as you Ewoks say, I tried. This didn't work. I tried to show you how one solves it, but this was not the right moment and I am sorry." He caught himself squeezing water out of the ends of the princess’ pink hood. "What I was trying to say…there are the times when one needs to be less like me and more like my brother. Right now, he's ruthless. But he is keeping me sane.”

Kneesaa pulled the top of the hood off her head and looked at the little blue gem that saved her aunt and sister a handful of moons ago. She poked it with her finger, watching it oscillate.

 

“I think I understand. But still, I shouldn’t have blown up at my best friend. That is not how a princess behaves. I have never heard Father talk like that to any Ewok, either.”

“We’re in danger, Kneesaa.” Mring-Mring poked the gem himself. “The k’varks catapulted at the enemies are the kind of k’varks I would call justified.”

She nodded and stroked the knife hanging from a harness on her waist. It became clear to her that this was no longer the time to be that nice.

“I’m so afraid, Mring-Mring!” she hugged the Gupin. “So, so afraid. This knife is nothing compared to the evils they brought along. They will kill us all.”

…

The group departed after the Ibleam were already high in the sky, the smaller one looking brighter than the large one, with the shadow of Tana looking greyer and less pink than ever before. With one last set of instructions on how to handle the injured Grass Trekkers, Teebo shook Mring-Mring’s hand. He was surprised to see the Gupin King place a tiny gem wrapped in a piece of cloth on his palm.

“Is that what was in the Juniper Chest? This gem?” His question was responded to with a discreet nod. “We cannot poss-possibly accept that! You need to…”

“There are two of them. Keep one for yourselves. We can manage with a single one for our Renewal Ceremony and what you are going to face if you follow the Silver Trekkers’ path is going to be far worse than anything that could happen to us here. I think they are not coming back here. There was nothing in the Trekkers’ shrine that they could have used to their advantage.” Mring-Mring stopped to take a breath. “On top of this, you’re capable of things I never will be. Maybe you can do something that us Gupins cannot even picture in our minds when we’re transforming.”

Teebo absent-mindedly stuck the artefact in his satchel. “Thank you.”

“We were really happy to see you again.” Ubel came from behind his younger brother. “Paploo’s wife…”

“M-my girlfriend.” Teebo corrected him hurriedly. “Latara and I have been together for a couple of moons now.”

Ubel shrugged. “…your girlfriend is quite a character. We hope that this was not the last time we see you. I hope that at least a handful of us is going to survive this war.”

“You call it a war?” The Ewok was surprised. “Then again…is there any other name for it?”

With those words and one last handshake, he climbed his makant and had it gallop after Kneesaa, Latara and Paploo, wondering what could have made Ubel think that Latara was Paploo’s mate.

“They are underestimating our knowledge.” Paploo pointed to large tracks leading westwards. “They are not even trying to hide their traces. Look, they’re heading towards the other side of the desert, to the lands inhabited by the Phlogs! Let’s follow them.”

And they followed the traces, their shadows bigger and bigger in the hot sand, finding no droppings or soiled sand on their way. When the night fell, they camped underneath a crescent-shaped stone. While the other three Ewoks were busy with their tents, Latara was observing the strange landmark from all sides. After the third time she walked around it, she joined the group and asked Teebo for a piece of parchment.

“I had better draw this right now.” She said. “We may need it to find our way back. It’s the kind of, like, the only thing that sticks out in this sea of endless sand.”

“We have the maps.” Paploo was quick to dismiss the idea. “Why does the stupid stone matter?”

Kneesaa was about to say something, then she remembered the Head Lesson. She sat down and opened a large sheet of parchment tied to the side of her backpack. The map was indeed not showing this stone. She was not willing to argue with her cousin again.

Unlike her, Latara had nothing holding her back from proving Paploo wrong once more.

“I think the stone was displaced and is a part of the Trekker shrine. Looks like it was worked on. It’s not a wonder of nature or anything…”

“How about the Phlogs?” Paploo took a large chunk of sunberry tart from his supplies. “They’re big enough to take something like that from the ruins and use it as, I don’t know, a cot for one of their younglings, or…get bored by it and just, just leave it lying around like that.”

Latara ran her hand over the smooth surface of the stone, until she noticed a hole drilled through.

“Paploo, do you think that a Phlog, who speaks in what could be no more than a handful of words, could have done that?”

The Ewok warrior twisted his mouth into a sheepish smile that would have been more fitting on Teebo’s face. Latara was trying her best not to laugh.

“They wanted a piece of this.” She said. “The Skull Ones with Silver Trekkers by their side. And whatever they were looking for, they didn’t find it, so…they dropped it on their way, I guess.”

The other three Ewoks could only shrug and agree.

There was no sign of danger, so they spent the night in the shadow of the mysterious piece of the temple. Wondering if her theory was plausible at all, Latara fell asleep looking at the night sky through the round hole. The makants were chirping in their sleep, but it was not bothering her friends.

She sighed and shook her head. Whatever was going to happen on this mission, she could not help but think that everything seemed bleak from the very start. More bleak than the destruction of the Dulok swamp. More bleak than the fight with the Griagh and her near-death at the hands of a Skull One.

On the other hand, the actual former Trekker shrine was intriguing, to say the least. She could not wake up the others to tell her more about how it looked back when they first went to the desert without her, but she resolved to ask them to draw it from memory the first thing in the morning. Another idea that she scribbled down on the edge of her first drawing was that the stone was part of something far larger and far more monstrous than anything they had ever seen.

…

Three days later, the four young ones reached the edge of the desert. The tracks had split at some point and they followed the set that was not going towards the known Phlog dwellings. Once the sand gave way to dry, sunburnt grass, Teebo gave one last pat to the makants and sent them back to where they came from. The Ewoks had to continue on their own and it was going to be hard.

Unlike the grasslands on their side of the desert, the area was covered in thorny shrubbery and sparse trees and they had to rely on vines for the first time in a while. Swinging from branch to branch while carrying large backpacks and blankets was frustrating and more dangerous. The bright silver thorns below were indeed trampled down in some places and Paploo concluded that the Silver Trekkers could walk over them without being hurt.

“What kind of creatures are they, anyway?” He scratched his head and reached out to help Kneesaa swing towards a particularly thick branch. “No droppings, no traces, they can die, but they cannot get hurt.”

Teebo was climbing down the tree down to what looked like a clearing. He raised his head upon hearing what Paploo had to say.

“I think they’re made of metal.” He stopped for a moment once his feet touched the ground. “But only the most powerful servants of the Light Spirit have metal. We don’t even know how metal is made.”

“Metal is cold, cold, cold!” Latara added. “And creatures are warm.”

“That’s it!” Teebo clapped his hands. “These Trekkers are not creatures! They are like space canoes!”

Paploo swung from a wine before him. “You’re saying some pretty strange things these days. First that there is another moon in the sky somewhere, now this. What are you going to say next? That the Trekkers inhabit a moon made of metal and that they come out at night to hunt their prey?”

“Why not? If they can fire at others, then they can see equally well both during the day and the night.”

“Teebo!” The three Ewoks chanted in unison. Logray’s apprentice looked down.

“Chak, I am seeing things again. But the last time I saw things…”

“I know, I know, you almost died.” Paploo was impatient. “Let’s find something to eat and then look at the maps. Kneesaa?”

 

The Princess nodded. She was worried about where they were going, but tracking down the Silver Trekkers was clearly as important as warning the other Ewoks. What she feared was that there wouldn’t be any Ewoks to warn on their current path. Or any creature at all.

…

The four had been roaming around the forest for what seemed more than half a moon. The more lost they got, the more Kneesaa realised she was wrong. Very wrong. There was no more shrubbery, so they could walk on the ground, which was not covered with fern like it was in the case in the Happy Grove. The treetops seemed to be harder to see through as well, but every now and then, they would see something that looked like a mountain peak peeking from the clouds in the distance.  
The soil here was free of any flowers, herbs or moss and so moist that Latara had to make snowshoes for everybody and cover them in large, thick leaves.

“So much mud.” She shook the dirt off her feet for who knows which time that day. “And it’s cold mud, on top of it! We’re going to need a larger fire tonight, the further we go, the colder it gets.”

“Say, where are we?” Paploo looked to Kneesaa and Teebo, expecting the answer that they had been unable to deliver for quite a while now. “It’s time the stargazing lurdo and the Princess admit that the idea of following these tracks was wrong. We must be close to the Snowy Peaks by now…that means you’re taking us straight to Hanging Moss Village, where they drink blood of their enemies!”

"No.” Kneesaa shook her head. “That would be across the desert and then at least two moons following Kuna’s Eye! I have a feeling we're on the other side of Endor or something. Close to Lake Sui.”

Paploo was not convinced. "Had you all listened to me, we would not be going the wrong way! Whatever way we were supposed to take, I am sure it was..."  
“I know where we are.” Kneesaa interrupted him again.

“Tell us, smartyhood!” Paploo spat on the ground. "Not that it's going to help us in any way, but…"

“The gorge of Skaadra. The mountain visible in the distance is Skaadra and that means we’re close to…gulp…” Kneesaa swallowed a lump. Teebo made an awkward expression and she just nodded. Paploo and Latara perked up in anticipation.

“The alleged heretics of Twin Lakes Village.” Teebo was clutching his fists. “Gondulas who no longer believe in trees and the spirits. I read about them in master Logray’s forbidden scrolls.”

“The traitors of the true Ewok spirit.” Kneesaa said, almost at the same time. “Whoever rules their handful of huts has not shown up at the Kantresna Summit for a long time. I read about them on the walls of the Hollow Trunk that my father kept off limits from me…”

“So, let me get this straight.” Paploo got into Teebo’s face. “The two of you constantly complain about the two of us breaking the rules, yet you broke the rules?”

“This is not what matters right now. We could be in trouble if follow the river to the lakes and get in touch with these Ewoks.”

“Then why don’t we turn around and go back?” Latara asked.

“We are running out of supplies and it’s getting colder and colder. I fear that we may have to ask them for help.” Kneesaa looked up to the mountain peak.

“No!” Paploo and Latara protested.

“I am your Princess and you seem to be forgetting that. After all, they could be in danger from the Silver Trekkers, too; and we could arrive there before those servants of the Night Spirit do! Teebo, do you agree?”

“Of course. If we don’t survive to tell everybody about it, then there is no point to this mission.”

Within two days, they managed to find the cold Skaadra River and follow it towards the peak. The rocky valley was covered in moss, unlike the forest before it. The river was mostly shallow and occasionally, they had to walk through cold water, as there was no other way through some of the narrowest passages.

Kneesaa determined that it would take them about four days to get to the lakes, but those four days were certainly longer than any others. Every now and then, somebody would bring up how they used to complain about the Yarlubb River. Now they were missing it – it was deep enough for canoes and even in the rockiest of the places on its way to the Grasslands, there were no boar-wolves, there was no threatening howl echoing through the night.

Finally, close to the sunset on the fourth day, they reached another forest. By this time, the Skaadra was a shallow stream, heading to the smaller of the two lakes. The peak was now behind them and they could see lights in the distance.

“Is that the village you talked about?” Latara asked Kneesaa.

“I sure hope so. Heretics or not, I would rather make peace with them and whatever they believe in than go to the Hanging Moss Village Paploo mentioned.”

“I just don’t trust Gondulas.” Paploo crossed his arms. He then walked to the lake, pointing to the stream. “Not so much of a big cold river anymore, aren’t you?”

To his surprise, the water in the small lake was warm. The group decided on a bath before rising their tents close to a particularly large tree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kneesaa's mantra are the three lessons from the Ewoks episode The Three Lessons, word for word.
> 
> There isn’t much on the Grass Trekkers' Shrine on Wook, but the place was clearly in one piece when Ubel and Teebo went there to retrieve the key to the Juniper Chest.
> 
> Phlogs are yet another species that was introduced to Endor through a starship crash.
> 
> Phlogs live in the Desert of Simoom. I made this desert the same one from the cartoon, since the Desert of Salma should be on the other side, where Wicket went to and where the Gorax is.
> 
> Lake Sui is a Legends canon location.
> 
> So is the Hanging Moss Village.
> 
> The part with Paploo saying that they "drink blood of their enemies" has been entirely made-up. It's not clear if it's a fact, or if it's an old wives' tale - Bozzie would have almost certainly said something like that.
> 
> The Skaadra River and the gorge, as well as the Twin Lakes of Skaadra are all fanon. They're all loosely based on locations on the border between Montenegro and Albania.
> 
> The large lake would be the Lake Skadar.
> 
> Look at the map to spot the small lake.
> 
> The river's real-life equivalent is Morača. This river is shallow itself, the only thing that does not happen is a) it entering a smaller lake; b) becoming that ridiculous stream from the prologue. Its canyon would be the equivalent of the Skaadra Gorge.
> 
> The mountain was conventionally glued onto the rest and it's actually Mount Gerlach...in space!!! This implies that the climate is much colder than in the actual real-life area and that the Endor lake is therefore not a karst lake, but a glacial one.
> 
> This has NOTHING to do with the further behaviour of characters from this area and do not copme up with Yugoslav Wars-related conspiracy theories. I just think the area is beautiful and it randomly came to my mind.
> 
> Kantresna is either an actual peak of another mountain where a summit of all Ewok leaders is held. I used the name I created for a side character in a [novel about parrots (!) in 1992](http://something.com%22).


	9. So Many Stars

The Sistermoon had risen by the time the tents were pitched. The girls were already in their sleeping bags. At all of their sleepovers, ever since they became friends, they would talk for a while before falling asleep. Their secrets, gossip and stories were always best served in the dark, with nobody else around. With their hoods and trinkets down, the time was right to discuss the events of the day, whichever festival had taken or was about to place, which of their friends was most annoying and why their parents and relatives gave them such a hard time.

This time, it was different. Kneesaa noticed that Latara was unusually quiet. No complaints about the boys. No whining about not having all of her homemade perfumes and accessories with her. Nothing. Just silence.

"Latara? How about a sunberry for your thoughts?"

The flutist didn't seem particularly eager. "Uh, no. Not really.” She was sitting in her sleeping bag, half-covered and playing with the large green pendant on her chest. Her friend continued staring at the Sistermoon above the lake through the tent flap, but after a while, she tried again.

“I thought there were not supposed to be any secrets between us. Ever. By the way, do you ever take that gem off?"

No answer, once again. Kneesaa was about to blow out the lantern and tuck herself in.

“Wait. I do want to talk!” Latara put her hand on the Princess’ wrist.

"Good. So, is this in any way related to our argument from earlier?”

“Which argument? We argued a lot.” Latara looked down and shook her head.

“You’re probably not proud of us.”

“Latara…don't change the subject.”

“Fine.” She crossed her arms and looked away. “Remember the last snow season when I got drunk, went and literally threw myself at Teebo? That night he got me angry beyond belief, I so wanted to see the Light Spirit and he was clueless.”

"Chak…who would forget that?” Kneesaa tried her best not to laugh. “Glad you don’t feel like those things will get away from you anymore now that the two of you are in a relationship…"

"Well, you’re wrong. I need to quench that thirst, once and for all.” Latara kicked the first object in sight, her own backpack.

The princess felt a sudden urge to cover herself, up to her eyes. “You’re making me slightly uncomfortable right now.”

“What are you? A princess or a priestess?"

"Very funny. Anyway, continue..."

Latara took the pendant in her hands and looked at her reflection in it. "In Teebo's mind, being with me is just about hugs, kisses and poetry." The distorted face in the pendant had enormous eyes and lips, she thought.

“That’s not enough for you right now?”

“It will never be enough. This is the way I am. It's been four moons since the evening we first watched sunset from the cliff and he has not tried anything. I didn't push it, as I understood that he needed some time to accept himself after all that happened.  Regain confidence. Whatever. He obviously did, if he can bring a Skull One down and attack a gigantic beast."

"Latara! His fur colour and attire might have changed and he has adopted his new role easier than many would have thought or so it looks like, but he's still the same Ewok underneath...the tender creature who takes everything seriously. Also, these two kinds of, as you say, confidence, are not related."

"I know, I’m not shallow!”

"Then maybe this could be the right time to show him so. Make him see that you too are yearning for tenderness, and not some rite of passage."

"Now? On this mission? No. I always wanted it to be special. When I first told you I was into him, I was, what, 12 snows old...he was 13 and a half, with those gorgeous fair bangs, ee-cha. I had a dream where I would take him to the meadow of lantern flowers at night and we would become one inside of a particularly large and bright flower, with some Firefolk flying around us. Then I would wake up and dedicate the whole day to being noticed by him. I would massage lovely oils into my fur, paint my lips crimson red and...He would just talk about animals, trees, flowers and...ugh! Glad I already knew the way around..."

Latara stopped mid-sentence, expecting her sweet and innocent friend to gasp and cover her mouth with her hands. But Kneesaa was focused on something else.

"You said lantern flowers. Latara, those don't exist. What you just described are half-lantern birds, half-aura blossoms."

Latara cocked her head. Those things indeed didn’t exist. She sighed.

"I guess his ways of thinking are taking over me. I am becoming poetry, symbols on parchment."

"If so, then just be it. Be something that he wants to weave into words and...Let him be something that you can mold into music. He is the words to your melody."

…

In the boys' tent, the situation was completely different.

“You’re not going to keep that hideous thing you wear on your head beside your sleeping bag, are you?” Paploo pointed to Teebo’s headdress. “It’s going to poke my eyes out…lurdo. And that horn...”

“Of course I will. I would not want some animal to soil it if it’s held outside…or worse.”

“Nice. As if it wasn’t enough that you will end up squishing me…you know where you should stick the horn, to save space?”

“You should have asked for a bigger tent when you were getting the supplies for this expedition!”

“Why so tense? You really need to…”

"I need to… _what_? I know that insult, Paploo! You have no guts to say it!"

Kneesaa peeked in the tent. “Is everything alright over there? We heard you and it sounded as if you were...arguing.”

“No, not true.”

“Absolutely not true. As a matter of a fact, we’ll sleep now.”

Teebo turned to one side, Paploo to the other; and they exchanged a couple of extremely bitter greetings.

"Good night, _not really a warrior_."

"Good night, _not really a wizard._ ”

…

 

At some point, Teebo woke up. Paploo, once so concerned about his comfort,was now snoring loudly and spreading over onto Teebo’s side of the tent, kicking him in the back. He sighed and got out.

The night was balmy, the sky full of stars. The plants were fragrant, but when he sniffed the air, there was one particular, overpowering scent he could not recognise. What could possibly smell like that? He followed the smell over the shrubs to the fire pit, through the meadow to the sandy shore of the small lake. Then he stopped and smiled. Latara was standing hunched in the shallows, splashing water on her neck and chest, getting ready for a swim.

He was not sure why, but his heart was racing like never before.

"Ummm...goopa..." he finally managed to say. Latara turned to him and smiled.

"Goopa, honeydrop. Can't sleep?"

"No, not while Paploo is snoring like a herd of boar-wolves _and_ chasing the said herd in his sleep. Why are you bathing? We all bathed this afternoon! Besides, you smell so good right now!"

She tried not to ignore him even though that one thing he said made her raise her eyebrow. "What on Endor are you talking about, Teebo? I never smell. I'm going for a swim."

"At this time of the night?"

"Chak! Why not? I need to cool down. It's way too hot here."

Latara took off and swam to the middle of the lake. When she turned around, her confused boyfriend was still standing on the shore, dragging his right foot through the narrow strip of sand and piling it up on his left foot.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" She asked, floating in the water. With almost comical lack of balance, Teebo walked on small stones scattered around the shallows, towards her. He could swear that her body was covered in starlike gems.

"The stars are reflecting in the lake…and on your bre…I mean, fur. I...I need to scribble this down!"

"Watch out, you will sl..." Latara pointed to the water drops on the rock below. Just as she said that, Teebo lost his balance and fell into the water. She quickly swam to him.

"Honeydrop, are you alright?"

"I'm just clumsy." He shook off the excess water from his fur. “And now I forgot the first verse of my new poem about you.”

He covered his mouth with his left hand. Latara giggled. Not that she didn’t know he had poems about her.

“Instead of writing poems about me, how about just being here, right now?” She swam further away. “Come here.”

He smiled and swam to her, then playfully splashed some water her way. She came closer, pouting. He closed his eyes and spread his arms to embrace her, but she spat a mouthful of water at him instead.

"Eecha waa ma, Latara!"

She giggled again and then kissed him on the lips.

“You had to earn this one. If only you could see your face when I spat that water on you…hey!”

He pulled her close, raised her in an embrace and they kissed again. Latara was surprised. But she liked it. She liked it a lot.

"There hasn't been a night this bright ever since master Logray taught me to watch the stars."

"Then you need to show me them all."

Teebo smiled and started swimming towards a tiny island with a single tree in the middle of the lake. “Chak. We’ll follow their traces in the water and I will tell you which is which and what happens when it’s aligned with…this…or…that…eeh…

…

 

Half an hour or so later, when the clouds started moving across the night sky, they got out of the lake and Latara lay down on the hollowed tree trunk separating the meadow from the shore.

"I need to dry off..."

"How? There is no sunlight, it's night." Teebo was stuttering by this point. He was standing above the trunk, scratching his head. His girlfriend said nothing, so he continued awkwardly.  "T-this reminds me of our first sunset...but it's different...err..." he stuttered. “It’s different because…you know…I was wondering…dyoustarswime?”

“What did you say, Teebo?” Latara’s eyes were wide open, as she propped herself up on her elbow again.

“I…said…do you want to see the stars with me?” He swallowed a lump and looked away.

Latara’s face lit up. But she was not answering.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“I think…” She hummed and then, unexpectedly, grabbed her boyfriend by shoulders and pushed him so that they both tumbled down from trunk to the grass and rolled all the way to the old tree. “I think the answer is yes. Touch me.” She assured Teebo.

Still looking away, he caressed her shoulders, only for her to grab his arm and start moving his hand through her fur towards her chest and belly, just like that morning on the cliff. He was finally looking straight into her eyes, with an expression that seemed to be slowly changing from the initial fearful grimace. Her smile made him think that she might want more kisses.

"There! Not that scary, isn't it? I didn't break to pieces. Now repeat. Slowly. Gently."

 _“Was there any other way than slowly and gently?”_ Teebo thought to himself. There she was, more beautiful than ever or so he wanted to believe, lying next to him.

"This wasn't in any of the futures...” He said, timidly. “The one with the new moon in the sky must have overshadowed it..."

"That new moon of yours seems to be taking forever to fill. Let's do something else while waiting! You could, perhaps, cover me head to toe in those sweet, sweet kisses..." Latara reached for Teebo’s shoulders and rubbed her head against her chest. They smiled to each other once again.

She lay down on her back and guided her lover’s hands with her eyes closed. His eyes grew wider and wider as he observed her hair bristling and her breaths getting deeper and deeper. At some point, she opened her eyes, smiled and pushed his head below her belly, muttering a shy “please”. He nodded.

…

 

A while later, Latara was running her fingers through the fur on the back of Teebo’s head. He was resting with his left cheek buried in her midriff; nibbling on a blade of grass and looking at her as if he had just witnessed a forest spirit appear from the nearby treetops.

"I saw the stars. And my eyes were closed.” Latara reached for Teebo's fingers. “Hold my hand. Hold my hand....please."

He held on to her hand and, for a little while they said nothing. Then a thought crossed his mind.

"Latara, do you think less of me for having done this?" He dipped the blade of glass in the small bottle hanging from his neck.

She stroked his fur again. He liked that. "No. Do you think less or me for having enjoyed it so much?"

“No.”

Teebo sat up and tucked the little flask away and leaned his back against the trunk of the large blooming tree behind, his eyes closed. "This tree says that it does not mind us..."

Latara placed her finger in front of her mouth. "I tell you, the tree does not know what it's missing!" She gave the blade of grass a quick sniff before gently pulling it out of her boyfriend's mouth and throwing it away, "My green-eyed boy sure has a sweet tooth, regardless of the matter at hand...even when I want him so much that I could tear out all of my fur and skin!” She took a deep breath. “The tree is missing out on a whole lot!" Her voice alternating between squeals and pillowy whisper, she sat on Teebo's lap, facing him.

He was about to tell her she was wrong and that trees get so much more pleasure from just being alive and protecting the forest critters than anybody could get from anything. But those thoughts were now overpowered by her sole presence and her silky fur brushing against his. She had no nature powers, she was not able to hear colour, but somehow, by pressing his head against her chest and listening to her heart beat, he could feel the kind of a bond that he didn’t have with any living creature. She pushed the boundaries the way nobody else could. All that it took was love.

She was looking back at him through her long eyelashes, wondering if he really thought that her eyes had been closed all along. She had never seen him like this and she loved it. The incident in the Wanderer’s lair did not change anything about how she saw him – even with those striking green eyes, the small and delicate nose, the awkward longer facial fur growing here and there on his cheeks and often finding the way into his mouth, he was still everything she ever wanted, _her little honeydrop_. At this point, she knew that she could not picture herself sitting on any other Ewok’s lap.

"You somehow knew everything I liked. Not fair using your nature powers like that!” She gave him another kiss and winked. “Now I need to find out what you like."

“I didn't even know I liked this much until tonight, but…” he stopped mid-sentence and looked down, between them. “Sorry!”

“Why sorry?” She was confused at first. "Oh…”

"Ummm...chak." He stuttered, prompting her to give him an encouraging peck on the neck. "And now, I guess we…err…I don't want to hurt you."

"You won’t. You’re gentler than I will ever be." She closed her eyes for a moment and squirmed a tiny bit. “See? I feel great. Hold me as if I were nothing but pure light and magic.”

She bit his lip and reached for the lowest branch of the tree, then he pulled her closer again. His lower lip was bleeding. _Did she do that?_ It took her a moment to realise that her lover was still slightly ashamed of his pleasure and trying to keep quiet by any means.

_But even then, he was the words to her melody._

…

 

On the other side of the bushes, Paploo woke up from sleep and noticed he was alone. He heard something outside, grabbed his slingshot and hurried out of the tent, only to see Kneesaa stand by hers. Unlike him, she didn't pick up a weapon on her way out.

"Kneesaa, how can you be so calm? We must be under attack, the Skull Ones must have caught up with us. I heard noise on the other side of the sunberry bushes. Leaves are rustling and I could swear I heard Latara's voice at some point...she sounded as if she was...struggling."

"It’s not like that. Not like that at all."

He was confused.

"Also, where is Teebo? His headdress, necklace, weapons and the horn, are just [or right] where he left them, the only thing missing is that stupid new charm he started wearing recently...and it was after I...mocked him for..."

As Paploo was slowly coming to a realisation, Kneesaa just pointed towards the bushes.

"Oh, by the great tree! I’m two snows older than him! I was supposed to be the first after Weechee and Tak, this is not fair! Why? How does that lurdo get somebody like her? I want to know what it's like! It's not like he will brag about it!"

He started to make for the bushes. The princess giggled and then pulled his hand away.

"Paploo! Take your sleeping bag and come to my tent, right now. I may be your first cousin, but I am also your princess and I don't want you to do anything stupid!"

He nodded, accepting what he saw as his biggest defeat so far.

…

 

That night, the Sistermoon was mischievous –it joined the two lovers by playing a game of hide and seek with the clouds. Each time they could see each other more clearly, an occasional sigh would break through the serene landscape of the old tree, small and big lake and the fog-covered, ice-glazed peak of the Skaadra Mountain.

At some point, the branch cracked, prompting giggles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was first outlined in December 2014 and it went through numerous changes in order to make it absolutely believable, sensual enough, yet not explicit. I wanted to show two awkward teenagers, with two different temperaments, each with their own vulnerabilities and desires. And yes, I wanted them to explicitly state their consent. This is not the censored version – it’s the only version. There is no extra content, anywhere.
> 
> [Sunberries](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sunberry) are a species of berries on Endor, no relation to the [poisonous ones on Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanum_retroflexum), whatsoever.
> 
> [Lantern birds](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lantern_bird/Legends) are large pink birds with bioluminescent tails.
> 
> [Aura blossoms](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aura_blossom) are a cotton-like flower species.
> 
> [Firefolk or the Wisties](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Firefolk) are the tiny semi-sentient bioluminescent beings previously seen in the Ewoks pilot episode, [The Cries of the Trees](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Cries_of_the_Trees) and the [Caravan of Courage film](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Caravan_of_Courage%3A_An_Ewok_Adventure).


	10. The Twin Lakes Village

Latara opened her eyes to the reepweb of the large tree above her head. The dense foliage was so thick that the sunlight of the Ibleam was coming through in sparse rays. A slight ache all over her body immediately reminded her of what had happened. The sensation of Teebo sleeping with his head resting on her shoulders and his body more or less wrapped around her, was something that once seemed like nothing but her imagination. She smiled broadly.  
  
Just then, he woke up.  
  
“Goopa…” He turned to her, grinned and then looked down, mumbling the rest of the compliment. “…t-to the brightest of the stars in the night sky.”  
  
She kissed him on the nose. “Goopa. You know, we saw many stars last night.” She lowered her voice. “At least I did.”  
  
“And you’re still the brightest of them all and the only star in my sky.” He slid his hand down her shoulder. “Nothing can change that. The moment came. The moment I finally feel what you feel, the moment where and when I am you and you are me...when we truly are one."  
  
Latara smiled. Even after a night like that, Teebo still turned away each time he said something romantic. “Chak! Do you feel any different now that we are adults?”  
  
“Adults?” Teebo was confused, almost worried by the thought. “We’re adults once we get to know all the good and bad there is in life. Once our apprenticeships have been completed. Once we see a loved one die. I don’t think mating means anything like that…”  
  
Latara pouted and shook her head. There he was, looking for a deeper meaning to simple pleasures of life once again! She was _certainly_ feeling adult herself.  
  


…

  
  
The Ibleam were high in the sky when Kneesaa and Paploo got up to add more wood to the pit, light it again and get some food ready. It was windier than the day before... At some point, clouds jumbled on the horizon behind the bigger lake, but nothing happened. Latara was playing her flute under the large tree. Teebo was sitting next to her with his eyes closed and his hands on his knees, his mind somewhere else.  
  
The princess walked up to her friend. Latara glanced at her from the corner of her eye and continued playing a little longer. Kneesaa waited patiently and, once the flute was back in the holster next to the firestick, swallowed a lump, grinned and waved.  
  
“So, you don’t know how to start this conversation, right?” The flutist adjusted the green gem around her neck. “I will give you a little hint: chak, it’s true.”  
  
Kneesaa put her hands on her mouth.  
  
“What did you expect?” Latara giggled and hugged her friend. “I’m efficient, so to speak. Once I have the Princess’ approval, I go through with my plans.” She winked. “And now that I have the words to my melody…” She turned her head to Teebo, who was still sitting there, with his eyes closed. “He didn’t hear what I said at all! Teebo?”  
  
Teebo nearly fell down. “What? What?”  
  
“Good morning. We didn’t mean to scare you.” Kneesaa put her hand on his shoulder. “Latara said something v…”  
  
He interrupted her. “I was trying to reach into the starfield…and figure out if my previous foreshadowing was making any sense. Now I lost the bordok cart of the Light Spirit…but I think I have it. This place is where we will see The Other Moon.”  
  
Kneesaa and Latara laughed.  
  
“I could see a strange falling star while…while…” Teebo looked down.  
  
Kneesaa blushed, Latara continued to laugh. “Didn’t you say that it was me?”  
  
“I am not joking! There was a falling star and it disappeared. And there may have been a…”  
  
“That was your beetroot drooping!” Paploo waved his hand in front of Teebo’s face and showed the small space between his big finger and his thumb. “You are not as much of a space Ewok as you would like to be.”  
  
Teebo looked down. Kneesaa gesticulated to him to ignore the taunting. Latara – luckily – didn’t hear this; she was still laughing. Paploo was already looking for edible berries in the nearby orchard-like enclosure.  
  
“Lighten up, loverboy!” He turned around, seeing that Teebo was still embarrassed. “You’re going to meet some folks more savage than you look today. Perhaps they’ll think you’re a real warrior.”  
  


…

  
Approaching the Twin Lakes Village seemed to have taken more time than it had taken Father Tree to create an Ewok from one of its branches. Kneesaa was leading the way, carrying a small gemwood tree sceptre similar to her father’s. Paploo was walking after her, and the other two were trailing further behind.  
  
This place did not look like anything they had seen before. In his late-night tales back at Bright Tree Village, Chief Chirpa would often tell them of distant places, painting pictures of the world they were yet to discover using Master Logray’s story pebbles. There were – of course – strange places that they had seen before. Teebo in particular had visited many during his early scouting missions with Wicket. And this little settlement contradicted anything and everything they could think of.  
  
For one thing, most Gondula lake settlements were located directly on the stilts in the water, with their structure very much similar to those of Panshee villages high up in the treetops. This one was located on the ground, closer to the forest, on the small strip of strangely dry land next to the sands of what looked like a hauntingly beautiful beach. None of the huts was taller or bigger than the others, but one of them was elongated, like a very long cart, and most of them had two levels. And there was nobody looking at them from the openings in the thatched walls. Nobody.  
  
They carefully proceeded to the centre of the village. The main square seemed desolate and the fire pit appeared to be out.  
  
“Are we sure they live here?” Teebo asked.  
  
Paploo shook his head. “We saw the light last night. They have got to be here.”  
  
“That light could have been something out of this world. Perhaps the Skull Ones attacked them before we got here.” Latara was pondering if she should pull out her firestick or not. “And they could get their hands on us, too.”  
  
“This is not the time to be afraid.” Kneesaa came closer to the ashes and ran her hand through them. She gasped.  
  
“They’re still warm. It’s a trap!”  
  
Just as she said that, a group of shorter Ewoks with strange masks appeared, chanting in a language they could not understand. Teebo snarled and reached for his axe, but he received a hit with the club to his head first. Latara screamed and drew her knife, only to be kicked in her back and pinned so close to the ground that she could taste the damp soil; she barely had space to breathe. She could not even reach for her unconscious boyfriend’s hand.  
  
Paploo knew that he had to do something. With a loud “Dengar!” he ran in front of Kneesaa, managing to grab the spear directed at her chest.  
  
“Do not kill us! This is Princess Kneesaa A Jari Kintaka, the heir to the throne of the Bright Tree Village in the Happy Grove! We are on a mission across Endor!”  
  
The masked brown Ewok holding the spear attempted to push it further and stab Paploo, but he could not - the newcomer’s grip was too strong. The rest of them stepped back, still chanting.  
  
“I am the heir to the throne of this village,” he said, taking off his mask to reveal a pair of golden-yellow eyes and a savage expression. “And you are to bow to Paar.”  
  
“Let him go, Paploo.” Kneesaa finally managed to say something. She patted her cousin on the back and extended her gemwood sceptre towards Paar. “Greetings from the Bright Tree Village tribe, your majesty.”  
  
“A woman heir to the throne.” Paar spat on the ground. “Panshees. Pathetic Panshees.”  
  
Paar started leading the chants in a bizarre, screeching voice. He pushed Paploo out of the way, stuck the spear into the ground and placed his hands on Kneesaa’s shoulders.  
  
Latara finally managed to look up, only to see that the group of masked Ewoks was now forming a ring around them. Each was holding the other’s hand, and their spears were all sticking in the ground, forming a pen. There were most certainly both males and females involved, as well as older woklings.  
  
“Mhmhmhm!” She clenched her fist.  
  
One of the masked Ewoks loosened his grip.  
  
“Let me go!”  
  
They finally let her get up and approach Teebo. He was not wounded, much to her relief. And he was slowly coming round.  
  
“My head aches…” he barely managed to say.  
  
Paploo walked up to him and helped Latara help him up. With a quick glance at the locals, he whispered to both his friends. “Do not do magic! Do not pull out the firestick!”  
  
“Why?” Latara asked, but he showed her to be quiet. They managed to get Teebo to sit down and they splashed him with the water from Paploo’s flask.  
  
He looked up, still barely conscious. “You’re…not going to hurt my girlfriend and my friends…”  
  
One of the masked female Ewoks pointed to the group.  
  
“Bagraa, do you see what I see?”  
  
“Chak! Veeda, Dodonee, look!”  
  
To the foursome’s surprise, the female Ewoks in the group were giggling.  
  
"He looks like Rango!” One of them pulled her spear out of the ground and poked Teebo with the other end. “Same green eyes, grey and black fur. And he’s big!”  
  
Paar’s right ear moved upon hearing this. He stopped his ritual, much to Kneesaa’s relief, and came to examine Teebo, who was still not sure what was going on. “...with bad teeth and slouched posture. Chak, this is strange. You’re like my dad…if somebody had punched him in the face, that is."  
  
“Can somebody explain to us what’s going on?” Kneesaa asked timidly, taking a couple of careful steps. “Can you set us free from this enclosure?”  
  
Paar turned around, breathing into her face. “Chak. I am taking you to the Great Chief Votrep. All four of you.”  
  
“Who is Rango?” Paploo scratched his head. His question went ignored by the masked Ewoks. With spears poking their backs, the four were led in procession to the elongated hut. Inside, the furniture looked more crudely made than their own back home and there were a couple of skulls hanging from the wall.  
  
Ewok skulls.  
  
Kneesaa swallowed a lump. Then she realised that the rug she was walking on was most certainly not made of animal fur, either. She jumped back, almost impaling herself on the spear of the Ewok pushing her. The lesson of the head echoing in her ear - the lesson of the head is learned when hands do not succeed - she did her best to appear less frightened.  
  
Finally, she was pushed in front of the other three toward the table with thirteen Ewoks, presumably this village’s Council of Elders.  
  
Just like outside, everybody in this hut was wearing strange, wooden masks, slightly resembling those of the Skull Ones. The one in the middle, presumably their leader, wore a pitch black hood that hid most of his face.  
  
“Who are you, woman?" There was something dismissive in his tone, or so she thought.  
  
"I am Princess Kneesaa of the Bright Tree Village. I was tasked with bringing you the news of a large threat of a kind nobody on Endor has ever experienced. This is my cousin and personal guard, Paploo. The tall one is our…healer, Teebo and he's with his…his wife, Latara. She is a hoodmaker."  
  
She looked to her left, managing to catch the surprise in Teebo and Latara’s faces. The mantled Ewok was surprised.  
  
"Bright Tree? That is far away, to the south. Since you trekked this far, there has got to be a good reason for it. A very good reason."  
  
“Chak.” Kneesaa felt weak in her knees. “We are here to help you.”  
  
“The great Vortep does not need any help.” He stood up. “Especially not from the Panshees. This village has seen a light brighter than the Second Coming of the Starmen. Our safety is such that even the Ewoks of the Hanging Moss Village avoid us. See?” He pointed to the skulls on the wall, then rattled his strange sceptre before Kneesaa’s eyes. “And this is the spine of their best warrior.”  
  
The princess’ heart was racing. Were they to be skinned alive and become rugs and wall decorations, too? No roll of parchment in her father’s collection, no single thing Master Logray or even the tough Head Elder Kazak had ever made her read, nothing that she could think of contained instructions on how to handle Ewoks who killed other Ewoks. She had to think fast!  
  
“Chak, great Votrep.” She knelt before the black-clad chief. “I can see how powerful you are. As I have said, we have arrived here to warn you of danger, but from what you have just told me, I think I am not worthy…”  
  
She cast another glance at Paploo, Teebo and Latara. She did not know how to tell them that she was sorry for what she was about to do, so she just pulled a small smile.  
  
“…and this is why I want to join your great tribe and observe the Second Coming of the Starmen! Whoever they are! And so do my friends!”  
  
Paploo subtly nudged the other two. “Chak! This was clearly a s…”  
  
“Silence!” his guardian yelled.  
  
“Please, do let Paploo speak.” Kneesaa said. “His blood is royal, like mine. He has important things to say!”  
  
“Speak, Panshee!” Votrep pointed the bony sceptre at Paploo. Speak!”  
  
“This was clearly a sign! My cousin is right. After all, our friend Teebo looks like…Rango. Whoever that may have been!”  
  
Latara’s guardian giggled again. Votrep slammed the sceptre against the crude table.  
  
“I said silence and that also means you, Feda! You are clearly not following my orders.”  
  
“I am sorry, Great Votrep.” The guardian looked down.  
  
“Council?” Votrep addressed the twelve other Ewoks at the table, as if he had just remembered that they existed. “Who is going to give Feda a lesson on how a woman should behave?”  
  
All but one of the village elders’ hands went up. The only one who had not raised his hand was also the only Ewok close in size to Teebo, with a bird skull on top of his hood. Great Votrep pointed to the stockiest one of the eleven, the one with an eyepatch.  
  
“Talgo, my most faithful servant. I entrust you with this task.”  
  
The stocky Ewok got up, walked to Feda and removed her mask, then spat in her face. The four Panshees could only look on as he pulled her out of the hut.  
  
Votrep looked at Kneesaa again.  
  
“Give me that sceptre.” He said.  
  
She obliged. He proceeded to break it apart. The gemwood tree was hard. Perhaps too hard for him.  
  
“Great Votrep, you might as well keep that for yourself!” The Ewok with the bird skull on his hood finally spoke. “It is beautiful! Almost like something from the hands of the Starmen themselves!”  
  
Votrep nodded and gave up on destroying the sceptre.  
  
“Thank you, Jaratt. Still, white one…”  
  
“It’s Kneesaa!” Paploo protested, only to be poked again.  
  
“…even though I could not dispose of your stick, you are no longer a princess or a heir to anything here. You are to oblige to the same rules as any other unmarried woman, following the initiation to the tribe.”  
  
Kneesaa bit her tongue. She looked to her friends once again. She could not recall ever having seen Paploo so worried. Did he know something that she didn’t? And how?  
  
Paar stepped out, his mask still off. “Votrep, please remember what you promised me. In a couple of snows, if the Starmen allow, I will be the best of all warriors and you will maintain your promise. This will be my village and I am going to need a wife.” He put a hand on his heart, covered by a thick leather bib of his hood. “I hereby claim her.”  
  
The twelve elders burst out in laughter. One was almost snorting.  
  
“You want to marry a Panshee.” Votrep leaned over the table.  
  
“Chak.” Paar groped the white princess. “She is not stupidly slim like that other one. She will learn how to submit to me. Please, save her for me and do not have her undergo that part of the ritual.”  
  
Kneesaa took a deep breath. “Just listen to that sigh.” Paar ran his fingers around her neck. “One can see that nobody touched her before. Pure and white, like the snow up on the peak, where the body of the traitor resides.” He patted her on the rear. “She will give birth to beautiful woklings.”  
  
“I…” she managed to mutter.  
  
“Shut up!” Paar slapped her against her face. “Don’t you understand how it works here? You are yet to be promised to me and before that…you are no Ewok to speak of! A woman is nothing until she has been claimed!” He hit her again. “Nothing!”  
  
Kneesaa managed to get over the initial shock and she looked to Paploo.  
  
“The woman is nothing and we shall accept it,” he said. “Consider me the leader of this group until the moment you initiate us.”  
  
“You are a fast learner.” Paar clapped his small hands. “Even if you have that ugly, ugly Panshee face.”  
  
“I like him, too.” Votrep got up again. “He can join our warriors. The healer, though…”  
  
Teebo wanted to speak, but what he had just witnessed rendered him unable to make a sound.  
  
“…he needs to show us what he is capable of.” The mantled leader looked at the buck-toothed stranger. “And looking like Rango is not going to help him. Nobody was quite like your father, Paar. Nobody.” He stopped and raised his voice. “Except me. I have seen the light.”  
  
“T-thank you, Great Votrep.” Teebo looked down. This was not the right moment for what had just come to his mind, and he decided to remain submissive.  
  
“And your woman…” Votrep looked to Latara. “What about her?”  
  
“She is in m-my charge, chak.” Teebo pulled Latara close to him, twisting her arm. “My woman, she w-will behave.”  
  
Latara nodded. “I will behave!” and attempted to add something else, but Teebo put his hand over her mouth and picked her up.  
  
“They are all fast learners, Great Votrep.” Paar concluded.  
  
“That’s right, young one. Jaratt?” Votrep looked to the tallest of his Ewoks.  
  
“Chak?”  
  
“Take them to the main square firepit and have them sit there all day! Have somebody bring them food and water. Tonight they will learn about the Starmen and become the first Panshees we have conquered and converted. And all they had to do was come to us. We did not even have to attack them!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case this was not clear: Paar is the same unnamed Ewok from the prologue, Rango's son. Of course, he’s a couple of years older here.
> 
> Reep is an aranchid native to Endor. It appears in the Ewoks episode The Land of the Gupins, but for some reason, there is no Wook page for it.
> 
> I refer to the Ibleam aka Endor-1 and Endor-2 in plural. The Legends name is cooler, but the Legends made a mistake of listing it as a single star, while it's clearly two stars, even in the cartoon. So, I use Ibleam as an Ewokese name for the stars, but yes, there is two of them.
> 
>  
> 
> The statement on Gondula villages being the stilt ones is deliberate.


	11. The Starmen

Once the Sistermoon had peeked from behind the summit of Skaadra Mountain again, the Ewoks of the Twin Lakes Village marched to the smaller lake with the four strangers walking before them, each guarded by a red hood-wearing larger warrior. Still, even these four skilled guardians appeared to be smaller than the tallest in the group of newcomers, the one who bore a striking resemblance to the Great Rango of Arankoo. Unlike their legendary chief who was, as they were told, killed by his jealous healer, this one did not look like he could lead a tribe. And – what seemed the strangest of all to Votrep and his two henchmen – he was a healer himself, or so he claimed to be. This was just one of the many things they had to deal with. What mattered far more than that was to take the tree-related beliefs out of the Panshees’ minds – no matter what it would take.  
  
And the Panshees themselves were more than aware of that.  
  
When they came under the luscious crown of the large tree separating the forest from the narrow passage leading to their home, the marching villagers stopped. The four guardians stepped out, pushing their prisoners before them.  
  
“This is the only tree that matters to us, for the Starmen had said so.” Votrep pointed to the reepweb of thick branches above him. “This is the tree the greatest of the great before me had died underneath. Rango of Arankoo!”  
  
He abruptly stopped and snarled, pointing at the broken branch.  
  
“Somebody broke the lowest branch on Rango’s sacred tree!” Jaratt looked up in surprise. “Whoever this was, may the Great Votrep never find out about you.” He cast a threatening glance at the hundred or so Ewoks who stood behind him. They all carried torches, the tops of which were covered in slow-burning lake-moss.  
  
Teebo and Latara looked at each other, terrified about who might be blamed for the damage the flutist caused during their passionate first mating. How could a loving night like that ever have been be succeeded by a hate-drenched day like this?  
  
“Follow me.” Jaratt told the frightened Panshees.  
  
Their enforcers poking them with tips of the wooden spears, the four Ewoks were made to sit in the middle of a circle he drew in the sand. Paar then joined them, taking his place next to Kneesaa.  
  
“I have to be a part of this if I want to claim my woman,” he explained to a confused Paploo as he pushed him to the other side of the circle, halfway over to Teebo and Latara. “I am a great warrior.”  
  
Now, where did Paploo hear that before? Oh, chak, Wicket used to repeat that about himself all day, every day, for a couple of moons – to everybody. It was impossible to forget.  
  
Jaratt proceeded to adjust the placement of the four. He pushed Latara’s head into Teebo’s lap, while Paar pushed Kneesaa’s into his own. Paploo looked on. He always thought he was a bit callow and he never aimed to be like Teebo, but these Ewoks were worse than Duloks. Why didn’t these Gondolas seem to understand that female Ewoks were as capable as males?  
  
Votrep, now wearing a different mask and a longer hood, walked into the middle of the circle. Jaratt stepped out and walked to the group of guardians who were now holding Feda. The guardians pushed the woman ahead and she crawled clumsily toward him.  
  
“She…she was…” Teebo whispered to Latara, but she could not hear him. “Oh, no!”  
  
“Blood of the unfaithful?” Votrep demanded.  
  
“Blood of the unfaithful!” Jaratt pulled Feda toward himself and cut her across her thigh. Blood sprinkled from her leg.  
  
“What are they doing, honeydrop?” Latara looked discreetly up for a moment. “Why is she bleeding?”  
  
“She was already bleeding when she came here.” Teebo shook his head.  
  
“W…what?” She tried to ask, but quickly stopped, as Jaratt was now pushing Feda. She took a whole lap around them, barely managing it, bleeding a new, red circle in the rut where the Elder had previously dragged it.  
  
Kneesaa tried to stick her head deeper into Paar’s lap. She could not bear to watch. But the young heir hit her on the chin.  
  
“Look, you weakling! Look, this is your initiation, not mine! My wife has to deserve me, after all.”  
  
She nodded and her eyes met Votrep’s. He pulled her up.  
  
“Fur of the pure?” he asked.  
  
“Fur of the pure.” He answered himself and pulled a couple of hairs from Kneesaa’s muzzle, stuffing them into Paar’s mouth. The young warrior chewed them and spat them out.  
  
“Pure.” He nodded in agreement. “I claim this woman to be the future wife of the Chief of the Twin Lakes Village, the Brave Paar.”  
  
Votrep put a hand to his nose. This did not escape Paploo’s keen eye. Nor did the fact that Kneesaa was not even asked to confirm this.  
  
“This woman is now the future wife of the Brave Paar. Nobody else may claim her, or they will be sacrificed to the Starmen.”  
  
Following this, all villagers began to chant, repeating Votrep’s words in a singsong voice.  
  
“Aaaaaeeeyeuh.”  
  
“Aaaaaeeeyeuh.”  
  
“We, the humble servants of the Starmen, seedlings of the stars led by Great Votrep...”  
  
“We, the humble servants of the Starmen, seedlings of the stars led by Great Votrep…”  
  
“…ask for the mercy of the Greatest of Them All, for we are accepting the four sinners, heretics into our tribe, without his consent…”  
  
“…ask for the mercy of the Greatest of Them All, for we are accepting the four sinners, heretics into our tribe, without his consent…”  
  
As if that word mattered here at all, Paploo thought to himself.  
  
“…and hope that he will prove that our decision to show them mercy was right.”  
  
“…and hope that he will prove that our decision to show them mercy was right.”  
  
Mercy? Paploo looked at Feda, who was now lying on the ground, not showing any signs of life.  
  
“We want to show them the way of the Starmen, the only right way to be. The only right way for an Ewok to lead his life and command his woman to do the same.”  
  
“We want to show them the way of the Starmen, the only right way to be. The only right way for an Ewok to lead his life and command his woman to do the same.”  
  
“May He show us forgiveness or, if we are wrong, may He come along and take away these four foundlings.”  
  
“May He show us forgiveness or, if we are wrong, may He come along and take away these four foundlings.”  
  
“Hail to the Starmen! Hail to the Starmen! Hail to the Starmen!”  
  
“Hail to the Starmen! Hail to the Starmen! Hail to the Starmen!”  
  
“The trace they leave is the dried blood of our enemies!”  
  
“The trace they leave is the dried blood of our enemies!”  
  
The masked choir went silent. They rubbed their torches in the sand to put them out. Votrep exited the circle. The first step he made, he left a trace of blood in the sand. He turned his back to the Bright Tree Village Ewoks and, with his hands up in the air, he addressed his people.  
  
“You may show them your faces.”  
  
The group was still reluctant. The first Ewok to take the mask off was a young female, wearing a green hood with two sewn-on dark-pink wooden stars on the left and right. She cast a nervous glance at the unfaithful woman, who was doing her best to appear more exhausted than she really was. With the mask now hanging around her neck by a small string of leather rope, she bowed to the village leader and managed an awkward grin.  
  
Votrep then took off his own mask. His facial fur had been completely shaved off and the greyish wrinkled skin beneath was covered with white powder. He had a crooked nose, the longest the group had ever seen on an Ewok. His eyes were as black as his mantle, his pupils not clearly distinguishable from the rest.  
  
“That’s one ugly Ewok.” Latara mumbled to herself. “And what’s with the shaved face? There clearly is no accounting for taste. That is not the way to apply that powder…” She sighed. Strange were her ways of encouraging herself sometimes.  
  
Slowly, most of the villagers took their masks off. Votrep came back into the circle, this time skipping over the remaining dried blood.  
  
“You may come out of the Circle of Initiation now.” He said. “And tell us your names. Paar’s bride goes first, since she is used to being the first.”  
  
“Kneesaa.”  
  
“The warrior?”  
  
“Paploo.”  
  
“The other woman?”  
  
“Latara.”  
  
The leader of the tribe stopped for a moment as his eyebrows peeked from underneath the black hood. “The alleged healer?”  
  
“Teebo.”  
  
“I still must test you.” Votrep showed the large Ewok to follow him. “The last time we had a dedicated healer, he betrayed the entire tribe. We have to make sure you are not going to do the same.” He led Teebo to the unconscious Feda. “If she lives, you are a skilled healer.”  
  
The green-capped female Ewok took one step forward; somebody in the group pulled her back and scolded her.  
  
Teebo sat down. Feda had lost a lot of blood and he could not do anything without using his magic, the same magic that he had already used to save the life of the Grass Trekker some days earlier. Luckily, unlike Mring-Mring and the Gupins, these Ewoks were most certainly not familiar with any kind of magic. Still, he found himself swallowing lumps. The crowd looking at him could have contained somebody as capable of magic as he was, but willing to tell on him.  
  
Still, this poor creature needed to be saved. He examined her. She had a wound in her thigh, the one Votrep had cut in order to have her draw a circle with her dripping blood, but close to it, he spotted another.  
  
He dragged his hand into the satchel. Shadowroot? No. Bug bite antidote? No. Maknaa-Miin-Tii? No. Finally, his nimble fingers found just what he needed – a small leather sack filled with mushroom powder, the only non-magical ingredient he carried around. A plain spice. He sprinkled some of it into a larger flask full of water and helped the injured Ewok female sit up.  
  
“Arandee, Feda. You’re going to drink this and your wounds will be healed.”  
  
He spoke slowly. She managed to open her eyes for a moment and give him a barely noticeable nod. Coughing between sips, she swallowed about a glassful of the concoction, as much as she could with Teebo’s large hand pressed against her forehead.  
  
“You drunk this and your wounds were healed.” Teebo took a deep breath. “I have the best concoction for healing those who lost a lot of blood. This drink is the best one can find in the forest.”  
  
With those words, Feda felt the blood flow through her veins again. Her wounds were no longer bleeding. The energy coming through the unknown Ewok’s hand seemed to be more powerful than the drink he gave her, but he claimed that it was what he just mixed up.  
  
“And just a tiny, tiny bit of this. It’s for strength.” Teebo had her open her mouth one more time, for a couple of drops of Blue Fire from the tiny flask around his neck. “With this, you are not going to have…any…unexpected…problems.”  
  
Feda grabbed him by the shoulder. He could feel her clawing him, but he continued. He was doing his best to show her that he was not her enemy, that he did not intend to punish her the way the Ewok with the eye patch presumably did earlier that day. Moreover, he wanted her to forget that nightmare.  
  
“Nobody hurt you today. You’re wonderful and you do not deserve to be hurt by anybody.” By this point, Teebo was whispering. “And I did not tell you any of this. You can get up and go home now.”  
  
“Goopa.” She finally let go and looked up. “Rango? Have I died and gone away with the Starmen?”  
  
Teebo smiled. “No, I’m not Rango. You are alive.”  
  
He helped her up. The crowd remained silent and surprised. The green-hooded youngling put both her hands over her mouth. Was this enough to convince Votrep and his henchmen of anything?  
  
“How did you do it?” Jaratt finally broke the silence. “I hope you did not use evil tree magic.”  
  
Teebo did his best to appear as innocent as he could. “W…what evil tree magic?”  
  
“It’s trees that channel worst possible kind of magic.” Jaratt crossed his arms. At first he did not dare to look into the newcomer’s piercing green eyes, but something was telling him to. “And Panshees practice it, the evil tree magic. We know. And we renounce it. It is against our beliefs.”  
  
“I did not use any kind of magic.” Teebo was speaking slowly, looking straight into Jaratt’s eyes.  
  
Votrep’s henchman seemed about to to disagree at first, but then he heard himself say something completely different. “You did not use any kind of magic.”  
  
“I am not an enemy of the Starmen.”  
  
“You are not an enemy of the Starmen.” Jaratt nodded and looked at Votrep.  
  
Teebo sat down on the ground next to Latara. He was not sure what kind of Ewoks would outright deny magic, but he never felt more thankful to the Soul Trees for having chosen not to reveal himself as a wizard apprentice. His girlfriend, sitting to his left, gave him a knowing look, as did Kneesaa who, still frightened by her new role, walked away from the pensive Paar and sat to Teebo’s right.  
  
Paploo, however, had different things on his mind.  
  
“So, can you tell us who the Starmen are?” He addressed Jaratt and Votrep again. “Now that we’re a part of your tribe, we are looking forward to…learning all about it.”  
  
Jaratt’s previously neutral facial expression changed to a smile.  
  
“I like you. I really do.” He patted Paploo on the shoulder. “You asked before we even began to tell you about it. Then again…it’s not like anybody before you ever lived to ask.”  
  
He gestured to the other villagers and they all sat down.  
  
“A couple of snows ago, our great, handsome and brave chief Rango died at the hand of his ugly little helper Mechett, leaving behind his young son, Paar. Our Head Elder, Ooba, was designated to rule the village, but he died in his sleep, out of sadness for Rango.”  
  
Kneesaa took a quick look around. The expressions on the villagers’ faces upon hearing Rango’s name were hard to describe – and she had certainly never seen anybody behave like that when Father spoke of the chiefs that came before him.  
  
Jaratt continued his story. “Chak, it was a dark time for our village. The Voggs were getting more and more aggressive every moon and we knew that we needed protection, but how were we to have it without a chief like Rango?” He paused and looked up to the sky. “And that was when the Starmen came. Great Votrep had predicted their coming. He has the kind of powers no Ewok is born with and the Starmen speak through him…”  
  
“What’s a Vogg?” Latara asked Teebo, who just shrugged. This was the first time she had seen him unable to answer a question about what must have been either a tribe or a creature.  
  
“…and we now know how to defend ourselves from the Voggs and protect ourselves. We have done away with the evil tree magic and we rely only on the power that Great Votrep channels, straight from the Starmen.”  
  
It was only then that Votrep joined the conversation again. His eyes had been closed the entire time his minion had been speaking him.  
  
“The longer you are here, the more you will learn about the ways of the Starmen.” He said. “But do not expect to understand things that are beyond your simple minds. For only I can speak to the Starmen.” He pointed to a surprised Paploo and it seemed like his boney finger froze between the newcomer’s eyes. “Perhaps the gifted ones like you, who are capable at adapting to our ways, will sometime become as great as I am.”  
  
“How about me?” Paar interrupted him.  
  
“You have so much to learn, young heir of Ara  
nkoo. You don’t even keep your mask on when we all do!”  
  
“Arandee, he is not wearing one himself.” Paar was now pointing to Paploo, too. “Can I learn whatever he knows?” The small Ewok put his hands on his hips. “After all, he is now a future member of my family. He is to give the one that is white as snow to me.”  
  
Votrep gave a subtle nod and finally put his hand down, while Jaratt snorted. Paploo tilted his head for a moment. What kind of a heir was this when they mocked him this way?  
  
“I can see that you too are aware of everything that is wrong with Paar, Paploo.” Jaratt showed the Panshee to follow him. The rest of the villagers were slowly getting up from the grass. “That is yet another thing I like about you. You will go far. Great Votrep is right!”  
  
As everybody was slowly heading towards the village, the green-hooded Ewok who had been the first to take off her mask walked up to Teebo and Latara.  
  
"Goopa, I'm Veevee." She shook their hands, looking at them with a pair of rather small conifer-leaf-coloured eyes. “Thank you for saving my mother. I am now indebted to you, g’wan Teebo.”  
  
“I didn’t.” Teebo shook his head, partly from fear of being discovered, partly from not knowing what a “g’wan” could have meant. He was doing his best not to look surprised.  
  
“You did. I saw it. And I am not telling them.” Veevee crossed her little arms. “I don’t care if it was forbidden, my mother would have died had she waited for the Shamed One to seek her tonight.”  
  
“What’s a Vogg?” Latara asked, but Veevee had already walked away.  
  
Paar remained seated on the ground until the very last villager had got up. Then he kissed, clinched his fists and ran after the group, who had found each other in the crowd again in the meantime; Jaratt had finally let Paploo go.  
  
“I will lead the four of you to your hut. My mother, Esa” – he pointed to one of the more suspicious-looking Ewoks who still had mask on their faces – “she will bring you some food and the other women will bring the rest. Paploo, do take good care of my bride. Until it’s the time for me to marry her, she is under your club. And do club her if necessary, as much as you think you should.”  
  
“R-right. Chak.” Paploo gave him his most convincing look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Veevee is a character created by @glitteryboots in early 2015. She sent me a wonderful drawing of a young female Ewok indicating that it's me and that I'm a writer and a friend of Teebo's. Her appearance matches the one seen in her drawing.


	12. The Feisty

Paploo was awakened by a knock on the wooden board holding the thatched wall. Before he could even get up and put his hood on, Paar came through the flap, carrying a basket full of fruits and vegetables and a bag of flour. Kneesaa covered herself in her hammock.  
  
“I apologise.” The small Ewok looked at Paploo. “I did not realise my claimed wife had been hoodless. “But as far as you go – I don’t apologise. Your fur is weird. Grey, but heading towards cinameen.”  
  
“You did not have to point that out.” Paploo pulled a sour face and tossed Kneesaa her hood. “I’m…moulting like a young bird and I’m well aware of that, thank you.”  
  
Paar snorted and pulled out a pipe. “Not everybody can be as handsome as my father and I.” He looked at Teebo, who was climbing down the ladder. “Not even this lurdo whom every stupid woman in the village considers to be handsome.”  
  
“He’s not handsome at all!” A grumpy voice came from above. “I have an ugly mate! And he needs to take a bath, because he canoodled with…”  
  
“Shut up, woman!” Teebo was surprised by his own attempt to cut Latara off before she would reveal that they had a mysterious visitor last night. “I am…allowed to do what I want to do. We are Gondulas now!” He looked away from the three Ewoks and sighed.  
  
Paar raised his hand in approval. “He may not be handsome, but he is a fast learner, just like you. That was the right way to put a woman in her place!”  
  
“Am I handsome, then?” Paploo rolled his eyes.  
  
“He-he…no!” Paar shook his head and blew some smoke in the newcomer’s face.  
  
“I do need a bath.” Teebo said, moving further away from the group. “The tubs are small and the big lake is a stone’s throw from here! Shall I go there?”  
  
“By the love of Starmen, no!” Paar clumsily dropped his pipe. “The big lake, that’s where the Voggs live.”  
  
“What is a Vogg?” came the voice from upstairs again. “Nobody responded when I asked about that last night!”  
  
Paar picked his pipe up and lit it again. “The Voggs are not really smart, they speak in gurgles when underwater and sing-song screams when on the surface. They have long, droopy ears, a furred body similar to ours…and three pairs of legs like reeps.”  
  
Kneesaa emerged from underneath the cover, now with her pink hood on. “So, they’re reep-Ewoks with long ears, oh dear mate?”  
  
“No, woman.” Paar lit his pipe. He inhaled the smoke and coughed, then threw an angry glance her way and took another drag on his pipe. “Their muzzles are not this flat and their faces are not round. They could eat fish, but they eat whatever ends up in the water – including Ewoks.”  
  
The princess swallowed a lump and reached over to Paploo. He gave her a hug.  
  
“I told you to keep her tame, not comfort her. But whatever. The Starmen told us to make sacrifices to the Voggs when the Great Votrep gets a sign from them.”  
  
“Is…that where the skulls on the Council Hut’s wall come from?” Teebo asked. “You make bloody sacrifices?”  
  
“K’vark, he’s smart.” Paar blew some smoke Teebo’s way. “Chak, that’s what they are. Most often, they are bastard woklings born from their mothers’ punishment. Great Votrep’s servant, Talgo, keeps them fed for this purpose, as he is most often the one to perform punishment on disobedient women. And then the Voggs take them away. And bring back bones.”  
  
The three Ewoks were trying to hide their shock. Paploo nodded, the other two followed. Paar continued.  
  
“But lately, we’ve had the Starmen pick adults for sacrifice, too. Each and every villager who is not following the rules could be sacrificed, should the Starmen want it so.”  
  
Kneesaa shivered. Paploo and Teebo looked at Paar, expecting answers.  
  
Latara emerged from upstairs. “How does this happen?”  
  
Paar refused to answer her. Paploo shrugged and repeated the question.  
  
“The Voggs find those who have sinned and pick them up on their own. For dumb creatures, they have a sense for finding the sinners. The Starmen were right to domesticate them, but we cannot, we are not capable!”  
  
The four were not responding. Paar let out a loud sigh and held the pipe in his hand.  
  
“Hope that was enough. I am here to take the men to warrior training. The women should stay here and do the household duties. I had my mother pick you some fruit and vegetables.”  
  
Paploo protested. “But, back at home, we’re already wa…” Teebo subtly stepped on his foot and continued for him. “Chak, we will be pleased to learn your superior ways of warfare and hunting! Can we bring some game home?”  
  
“Of course. Now, grab something to eat, we have to get moving. The Starmen want us to be strong.” He tossed a small and mouldy honey melon over to Paploo, nearly hitting him.  
  


…

  
A little later, Teebo, Paploo and Paar arrived at the training ground, in the middle of the forest. Teebo recognised the clearing where he had talked to Luufi. He was hoping that she would not show up under these circumstances. Jaratt and Talgo were standing in the middle of the field, accompanied by a handful of other warriors.  
  
“Welcome, aspiring warriors.” Jaratt stepped towards the newcomers. “I have been waiting for you, so we can start today’s training. And then we’ll see if you have what it takes to be a part of our defence corps.”  
  
A couple of Twin Laker warriors laughed. Paploo grinned.  
  
“Do you even know what you’re in for?” asked Talgo. “Our training sessions are not what a Panshee is used to. We are small, but strong. And we don’t climb no trees – trees are evil. In our trainings, you are going to wrestle in the mud, dig holes and strangle munyips with your own bare teeth.”  
  
Teebo felt as if his heart stopped beating for a moment. Gondulas were known to kill munyips, the same gentle creatures with whom the Panshees lived in peace – the helpless little bug-eyed rodents that jumped from tree to tree and that every wokling in Bright Tree Village loved playing with.  
  
He could feel the pain of one such creature later during the training, when Talgo caught it and bit it on its neck, killing it almost instantly. A fountain of blood was spraying from the munyip’s vessels and he was just standing there, trying not to cry. Much to his relief, he and Paploo were tasked with catching snakes and using their own weapons – but still, he never thought that he would have to witness so many awful things within a couple of days and not be allowed to react, because that would bring his friends’ lives in danger.  
  
Paploo, too, was doing his best not to weep as he observed the Gondulas maim the forest creatures, though there was no need to hunt, as food was plentiful in the summer. And there was another thing he could not help but wonder.  
  
“Master Jaratt?” He made his way to one of the two senior warriors.  
  
“Chak.”  
  
“Why is Great Votrep not overseeing these trainings?”  
  
“This is the time when Great Votrep meditates. And then, during one of the nights when the Sistermoon is full, he sails to the middle of the lake in his boat and reaches out to the Starmen from within his body and mind. He chants to them to help us make the right decisions.”  
  
“When is this?” Paploo asked.  
  
Jaratt was about to respond, but Talgo cut him short. “We don’t know. Only Great Votrep himself is aware of this. We cannot be in tune with the Starmen, only he can. And we’re grateful for his abilities to speak to the stars.” The eye-patched Ewok cracked another carcass’s skull open with a pointed rock, prompting the Panshees to shiver. “Something wrong, apprentices?”  
  
“N-no!” Teebo was clutching his fingers behind his back. “We were just wondering about the part where we get to show how strong and…ummm…manly we are.”  
  
Talgo’s good eye opened up. “I was waiting for you to ask me this, Panshee. We are going to do some sparring.” He tooted the horn, which, unlike Teebo’s and Paploo’s, was made out of a large shell. "And the two of you will pick your opponents first. Use whatever method you want."  
  
In the shortest possible amount of time, the locals gathered and lined up.  
  
Teebo was about to suggest guessing the number of monmon seeds as the chance game to pick sparring partners, but Paploo had already closed his eyes with one hand and begun the wokling rhyme.  
  
 _“Bordok, hanadak, munyip, tree,_  
 _You will be the one for me.”_  
  
Paploo opened his eyes. His finger was pointing to a giggling Paar.  
  
“Time I pointed at you,” the small Ewok said. "Have not done so for quite a while."  
  
The Twin Laker warriors were laughing. Paploo assumed that they were laughing at Paar's self-esteem. The small Ewok could not be dangerous, could he?  
  
The others were picking their partners and Teebo ended up with Jaratt after he decided that it would only be fair to fight somebody close to his size. All this nature-power cheating was starting to get to him, but just as he did when he saved the Grass Trekker from the brink of death, he told himself that nothing could make up for hurting somebody smaller than him.  
  
Jaratt was a great fighter. And he was definitely not the one to get carried away and play rough. They ended up trying to wrestle one another off a fallen log, and mutually agreed to consider it a tie.  
  
"You really remind me of our former chef, Rango, as a fighter, too. He was fair." Jaratt shook Teebo's hand. "You know, some of our warriors tend to hurt others when we train. And I don't like that."  
  
Teebo was about to pat his new acquaintance on the back, but he was cut short by what sounded like Paploo - screaming. He grabbed Jaratt's hand and they both ran to the only remaining pair on the ground. Paar was sitting on Paploo’s chest and pulling a pair of bolo slings around his neck.  
  
“Scared yet?” he mumbled through a stiff jaw full of sharp, small teeth. “I may be small, but I could kill you in your sleep.” Paar calmly got up and removed the bolo sling from around Paploo's neck. "See? These are the fake ones. But my real pair…you don't want to see my real pair."  
  
Teebo came by and offered to help his friend up. “Paploo, did he hurt you?”  
  
“No. I just could not concentrate. I turned around for a moment and…” Paploo waved his hands, in the most dramatic manner that he was capable of.  
  
“Oh…so, he hurt your pride.” The grey Ewok grinned. “This is a dark day for King Paploo.”  
  
There were no k'varks in Paploo's response. Just a deep, deep sigh.  
  


…

  
Kneesaa and Latara were cooking a stew. Earlier, they had attempted to dig the soil in front of the hut and plant some herbs, but it was too hard. They could not help but wonder when the last time was that somebody had lived in their new domicile. And now, they had to wash one wooden dish after another, as each was full of bugs and dust.  
  
“So, he told me to shut up.” Latara said at one point. “He is becoming my father.” She pushed a piece of a vegetable away. “The next thing you know, he will be like one of these local…molesters.”  
  
Kneesaa stopped cutting a piece of a large root. “Now, where did that come from? Teebo did not want Paar to know about Luufi and you almost revealed that she was here!”  
  
“Don’t mention that crazy, dirty one and her tattered hood!” Latara was now yelling. “He smelled of turd when he came back with her, just like she did! What if he really canoodled with her in the woods?”  
  
The princess snorted, much like Paar did earlier. “Latara…what? Where did that come from?”  
  
“She is a woman! In case that escaped you...” Latara grabbed the root and started cutting it with her combat knife. “And he was not much in the mood for pleasing me when she sneaked in! I already told you that! He got the taste of honeycomb once and now he wants it from somebody else! And everybody here wants him…who knows where his beetroot will be tomorrow!” She hit the root so hard that the knife remained stuck in the wooden table. She shook her head and pulled it out, with another “k’vark”.  
  
"Doesn't sound like somebody who would go for another girl..." Kneesaa was doing her best to remain calm despite her friend’s display of aggression. “Didn’t you say that he genuinely enjoyed it when you were mating?”  
  
Latara hit the root hard and the knife got stuck again. "Argh, you always, always defend him! You grew up together and you just don't see his flaws!"  
  
"I do. I told you so many times. He is chaotic, he often does not make sense at all...but this is nothing to be worried about. How about you believe me, for once?”  
  
“You? Ha! You have not been touched by a man! You were shocked by the things I was telling you when I was only yearning for Teebo. What do you know?” This time, the knife was impossible to pull out of the wood.  
  
Kneesaa shook her head and looked down. “That does not mean that I don’t yearn for somebody…in a different way.”  
  
“Chak, right, you’re yearning for...I don’t know, Wicket, or his silly brother. What if…” Latara stopped mid-sentence. Kneesaa was crying. She finally stopped trying to pull the knife out and hugged her friend instead.  
  
“I am…sorry if that offended you. I did not mean to say that you were not an adult or anything. You are so much wiser than me, in so many ways. I did not mean to imply that you liked Wicket, either! You are way too smart for that!”  
  
Kneesaa sighed and hugged her friend back. “It’s alright. As long as you did realise your mistake. We’re all adults, after all.”  
  
Latara raised her eyebrow. Didn’t Teebo claim otherwise? How come Kneesaa and Teebo were not agreeing on something? She approached the knife more calmly and managed to pull it out. She set it aside and sat down, leaning against the wall, and gestured [or motioned] to Kneesaa to sit next to her. The rain was beginning to fall outside.  
  
“You also wanted to ask me what it was like to mate…right?"  
  
Blush appeared underneath the thin, white fur on Kneesaa’s muzzle. "Sort of. Okay, yes. I do. I can envision my future, marrying somebody whom my family picked for me, as opposed to somebody I love. I know the basics from my studies of scrolls..." Kneesaa paused for a moment.  
  
"Not your sister?" Latara was surprised.  
  
"I would be…ashamed to ask Asha about it."  
  
"Figures...so, where do I start? I loved it. I loved his smell and he loved mine, too – I think it showed him that he should mate with me. And for such a shy, withdrawn lurdo…” Latara stopped, seeing her friend’s angry face. “…I mean that as an endearment! He was daring. He surprised me. First, he grabbed me and pulled me close in the lake. I have never seen him like that. As if it were not him. But then, chak, later on, he was scared again… I had to put his hands on my chest myself and encourage him to touch me and then, he does that, speaks in a deep voice...and when he stops, I want more.”  
  
"Did you bleed?"  
  
"No, don't be silly. I just...I just sat on his lap, he was ready…and it was nice!"  
  
"That is scary! I heard…that boys are insatiable and that it hurts a lot...” She put her hands on her mouth. Latara was now sure that Kneesaa was eavesdropping on the older girls, as much as she did.  
  
“He wasn’t.”  
  
"I heard you moan." Kneesaa nodded. “And so did Paploo. I stopped him from…”  
  
"I did...At some point, I kissed him on the lips again and there was blood. He...bit his tongue."  
  
"He knew that Paploo and I would hear you, I think,” the princess pointed out.  
  
“Maybe. But who cares? When you love somebody that much, you go by what feels right. Not what somebody else thinks is right. I would have moaned last night, too…if that Luufi-lurdii hadn’t interrupted us.” Latara sighed and finished her story. “And this is what it will be like for you when you become the chieftess and you have a handsome mate, preferably another village’s prince. Not Paar, don’t worry. We’ll get out of here.” She nudged her friend with her elbow. “A real handsome prince. Paar kind of looks like Wicket, anyway. As in…small and ugly.”  
  
Kneesaa got up. There was a hidden tear going down her blushing muzzle. She clumsily put the fire in the pit away, only to realise that she needed it to cook the stew. This is where anybody else would have said a healthy k’vark or two, but she just shook her head instead and proceeded to rub two pieces of wood against each other.  
  
Just then somebody knocked on the flap frame. She gasped.  
  
“I…hope nobody will attack us while Teebo and Paploo were away.”  
  
Latara nodded and grabbed the knife, then headed out, her friend trailing behind. They could hear rustling in the bushes, but there was nobody outside. However, a large basket of what looked like dangleberries was on their doorstep.  
  
“What the…” She put her hands on her hips. “We already have food. Not that making some jam would not be a good idea.”  
  


…

  
Teebo and Paploo were covered in the mud by the time they got back to the hut. Once they had reached the gate of the fence enclosing the small space of ground around it, Paploo blocked Teebo’s way. The larger Ewok moved back to the left, but his friend leaned over the gate. He sensed that an unpleasant conversation was about to take place.  
  
“What do you want, Paploo?”  
  
"Tell me more about it! What was she like? How long did it take you to..."  
  
"No.” Teebo stopped his friend before he could even end the sentence. “Why would I share that much with you? I don't think I would even share it with Wicket. Or my dad."  
  
"Pfft. I knew it. You were not good at it. And it's not fair. Weechee and Tak gave me every detail of their first matings with Chirita and Asha."  
  
"Good for them, I guess?" Teebo was clearly irritated.  
  
"If you don't tell me, they are not going to believe you at all. For one, for years we thought you were a total lurdo. You never even wanted to play the boys' games. You know, dares. At first you didn’t speak outside of your family hut. And then, you were hanging out with Wicket, who was still was a wokling and we never wanted him anywhere near those games, because he would tell his father!"  
  
"I was studying magic. And I did not want to take part in those dares. They did not make sense, none of that did without the only girl I ever wanted to be with."  
  
Paploo clapped his hands. “So, that’s what the spirit boy’s game is? You were friends with Latara all along because you knew that you would get your beetroot in her honeycomb someday."  
  
"Has it not occurred to you that we are in love? And she was always my friend. Mating is not why you become friends with a girl...or a boy, for that matter."  
  
"Then you do have a tiny, wrinkly beetroot! Hahahaha!"  
  
Teebo snapped. "At least I don’t think with it, like you!”  
  
"See? You don’t think with it. You care more about yourself and less about her. You are just like any other male Ewok and, after this, you will never succeed Logray as the village medicine man. Gone is your purity..."  
  
Just as Teebo was about to hit Paploo, something he had not done in a long time, he spotted Latara raising the flap. She was looking at them, slightly puzzled.  
  
"Boys, what is wrong?" she asked.  
  
"We are talking about...vegetables." Paploo was not even trying to make his lies sound believable at this point.  
  
"Chak, for...stew." Teebo’s buck-toothed grin was giving even further away.  
  
“No need to.” She stuck up her nose. “Kneesaa and I already made some. And dangleberry jam is being cooled to eat with darkbread latter. Teebo, honeydrop – you can further prove how much of a man you are and spread the jam on the bread with you machete.”  
  
Teebo frowned, but his girlfriend tickled him on the chin, prompting him to giggle.  
  
“I’m just teasing you!” She propped herself up on her toes to give him a very slobbery kiss. “I will prepare you a warm bath in a bigger tube we found, and then you’ll have the best stew of your life.”  
  
His face lit up. “With diced cinameen?”  
  
“With diced cinameen!”


End file.
